Generalized Scaling Laws of Plasma Parameters in Electrothermal Plasma Sources for Fusion Disruption Erosion and Hypervelocity Launch Applications

Abstract

Generalized operational scaling laws have been developed for the peak plasma parameters at the exit of an electrothermal plasma capillary discharge. These parameters are the total ablated mass, plasma kinetic temperature, pressure, bulk velocity, and the radiant heat flux. The obtained scaling laws have particular coefficients depending on the material of the ablating liner inside the capillary source. The generalized scaling laws include the magnitude of the peak discharge current, material property, and the dimensions of the ablating sleeve. The values given by the scaling laws are compared with the ones calculated by the computational ElectroThermal Flow (ETFLOW) code and against the experimental data. The obtained results of the scaling laws have shown low error, especially the scaling laws of the kinetic temperature and the plasma exit velocity.