Influence of Downstream Flow on Conduction Phase of Coaxial Plasma Opening Switch

Abstract

Plasma behaviour and the scaling relations in a coaxial plasma opening switch (POS) using hydrogen plasma are studied self-consistently based on the two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations in conjunction with the generalized Ohm's law. The vacuum region on the right of POS is included in the model and the influence of downstream flow on the conduction characteristics is discussed. It is found that with the penetration of magnetic field, the pure hydrogen plasma is pushed downstream significantly; and POS still conducts current after the magnetic field arrives at the load edge of POS, which is different from the previous experimental results in a multispecies POS. It is because that the noticeable downstream plasma in the pure hydrogen POS may continue to conduct the current, while in the multispecies POS, the downstream plasma is unimportant so that the conduction phase ends soon after the magnetic field reaches the load edge. The scaling relation obtained from the simulations including the downstream region is consistent with the experimental results.