Experiments on Electrical Breakdown in Water in the Microsecond Regime

This paper presents experimental results from research on electrical breakdown in water carried out at NSWC/DL. The experimental apparatus is described in some detail. Results from approximately two thousand tests are presented. Breakdown events were observed predominantly in the 2-10-μs regime for applied fields in the range 150-500 kV/cm. The shot-to-shot variation of breakdown time intrinsic to the phenomena requires statistical measures of performance. The performance of four electrode materials-copper, brass, stainless steel, and aluminum-is presented. The first three performed similarly; aluminum was significantly different.