Abstract Details
Stabilization of the Kink Instability in Conical Wire Arrays with a Center Wire
Author: David A Martinez
Requested Type: Poster Only
Submitted: 2009-04-21 17:54:13
Co-authors: R. Presura, S. Stein, S. Neff, C. Plechaty
Contact Info:
University of Nevada Reno: Nevada Terawatt Facilit
5625 Fox Ave
Reno, NV 89506
United States of Ame
Abstract Text:
Previous work has shown analytically and numerically that sheared plasma flows are capable of stabilizing the interchange instabilities commonly found in Z-pinches. These types of flows can be obtained in the laboratory by imploding conical wire arrays with a central conductor. Experiments conducted at the Nevada Terawatt Facility explore shear flow stabilization of conical wire arrays with a center wire using Zebra, a two terawatt Z-pinch generator capable of delivering 1MA of current to the load with a rise time of 90ns. In these experiments, conical wire arrays with various size center conductors were imploded and compared using multiframe laser imaging and X-ray pinhole imaging. In addition, experiments were also performed using a kink perturbation with 1 mm wavelength in the center conductor to observe the growth of a kink instability in a shearing plasma. In our analysis it was suspected that the center conductor could play a significant role in the stabilization of the plasma column regardless of shear flow. Thus conical and cylindrical wire arrays were imploded and compared to investigate such effects. This presentation will discuss the results from these experiments and focus on the stabilization of the kink instability. This work was supported by the NNSA grant DE-FC52-06NA27616.
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