Exploding aluminum wire expansion rate with 1–4.5 kA per wire

Abstract

X-ray backlighter images (radiographs) of current-induced explosions of 12.7–25 μm diam Al wires have been used to determine the expansion rate and internal structure of the dense wire cores. The current rises to 1–4.5 kA per wire in 350 ns, but voltage and current measurements show that the energy driving the explosion is deposited resistively during the first 40–50 ns, when the current is only a few hundred amperes per wire. A voltage collapse then occurs as a result of plasma formation around the wire, effectively terminating the energy deposition in the wire core. High-resolution radiographs obtained over the next 150–200 ns show the expanding wire cores to have significant axial stratification and foamlike structures with ∼10 μm scale lengths over most of the wire length before they disappear in the expansion process. The expansion rate of the portion of the wire cores that is dense enough to be detected by radiography is 1.4–2 μm/ns commencing approximately 25 ns after the moment of the voltage collapse. (The sensitivity limit is equivalent to 0.2 μm of solid density Al.) By 250 ns after the start of the current pulse, the detectable wire core diameter is 250 μm, but it contains only about 30% of the initial wire material.