Generation of magnetosonic waves by electrical explosion of conductors driven by mega-ampere current pulses

Abstract

An experimental study of the explosion of cylindrical copper rods in the current skinning mode was performed using the GIT-12 high-current pulse generator with currents of amplitude up to 5 MA and rise time about 2 μs. It was observed that the waveforms of the electrical impedance of the exploded rods exhibited low-frequency oscillations with a period of several hundreds of nanoseconds. The results of the experiment with exploded solid copper rods carried out on the GIT-12 facility were interpreted by performing a series of magnetohydrodynamic calculations. It was shown that the experimentally observed low-frequency oscillations of the rod impedance were associated with a fast magnetosonic wave excited in the material of the rod.