The development of coated and non-coated wire explosions observed by X-ray backlighting

Abstract

Based on an X-pinch X-ray point source, the electrical explosion of coated and non-coated wires with 25 μm diameter was backlit. The experiments were performed on the pulsed power device PPG-1 (500 kV/400 kA/100 ns) which was designed and constructed by the Department of Electrical Engineering of Tsinghua University. The source X-pinch was installed between the main output electrodes, while the object coated and non-coated wires were placed at the positions of the left and right current return rods, respectively. The backlighting images were recorded by X-ray films with high resolution and sensitivity. By a large number of backlighting experiments, the exploding physical images and expansion ratio curves of the coated and non-coated wires were obtained, and the results showed that coating can make the wire expand to be larger and more uniform.