The electro-thermal stability of tantalum relative to aluminum and titanium in cylindrical liner ablation experiments at 550 kA

Presented are the results from the liner ablation experiments conducted at 550 kA on the Michigan Accelerator for Inductive Z-Pinch Experiments. These experiments were performed to evaluate a hypothesis that the electrothermal instability (ETI) is responsible for the seeding of magnetohydro-dynamic instabilities and that the cumulative growth of ETI is primarily dependent on the material-specific ratio of critical temperature to melting temperature. This ratio is lower in refractory metals (e.g., tantalum) than in non-refractory metals (e.g., aluminum or titanium). The experimental observations presented herein reveal that the plasma-vacuum interface is remarkably stable in tantalum liner ablations. This stability is particularly evident when contrasted with the observations from aluminum and titanium experiments. These results are important to various programs in pulsed-power-driven plasma physics that depend on liner implosion stability. Examples include the magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) program and the cylindrical dynamic material properties program at Sandia National Laboratories, where liner experiments are conducted on the 27-MA Z facility. Published by AIP Publishing.