Information from measured current in exploding wires

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Abstract
Measured current waveforms in an RLC circuit are used as a basis for obtaining information on the behavior of wire material at various stages of the explosion. In the premelt region, there is, as expected, complete agreement between measured current and current calculated on the assumption that temperature and resistivity are linear with energy input. After absorption of an energy which under static condition leads to solid−liquid transition, the fit is unsatisfactory but can be improved by treating the wire as a superheated solid for a period of about 20 nsec. During the vaporization stage, resistance and energy are derived from the measured current. If all the energy input is assigned as latent heat of vaporization, the calculated current deviates drastically from the measured current, indicating that for all capacitor voltages used in this study, the process is far from static condition. Furthermore, the higher the energy input rate, the greater the containment forces and the more energy is required to expand a given portion of the wire. A sharp boundary is assumed to separate the unvaporized conducting core from the nonconducting sheath of vapor. The inward displacement of the boundary is determined from calculated data for resistance and energy.

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