Initiation and assembly of the plasma in a plasma flow switch

A series of fast opening switch experiments was carried out on the Pegasus pulsed power facility. The first series of experiments characterized the assembly and run down of a 50 mg plasma flow switch operating in the 6 MA regime. The switch plasma arises from the vaporization of a wire array and a barrier foil. Arrays with different numbers of wires were examined. Two-dimensional (2-D) radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the initial vaporization stage of the array plasma and its assembly on the barrier foil are presented, which include the effects of initial perturbations on the evolution of the switch plasma as it moves down a coaxial gun barrel. Sparse wire arrays were observed to perform poorly. A change in the experimental design, motivated by 2-D simulations, led to improved performance. Computational results which lead to these changes are discussed, and the results are compared with experimental data.