Electric discharge parameters in high density gas

At the IPE RAS were continued the experiments on the two-stage facility to study the powerful electric discharge in high density hydrogen. Results of these investigations are very important for improvement of characteristics of pulsed plasma generators (PPG) which are the main part of electrodischarge, electrothermal and electrothermal-chemical launchers. In course of experiments the influence of current rise rate and initial particle density on arc parameters was investigated and bright temperature of arc outer layer was measured. These experiments were performed under the following conditions: charge voltage of capacitive storage -8.0-12.0 kV, stored energy -140-400 kJ, discharge current -200-600 kA, current rise rate -10/sup 9/-10/sup 10/ A/s. The maximum particle density n/sub max/, achieved after the adiabatic compression of gas was about 3.0/spl times/10/sup 22/ cm/sup -3/. It was revealed that increasing in current rise rate causes reducing of arc diameter and increasing of its temperature. Experiment results permit to define the electric parameters of arc (arc voltage, arc resistance and strength of field) sizes of arc channel and discharge current density. Obtained experimental data permit to calculate the main parameters of discharge such as: temperature of arc channel, plasma conductivity and density of charged particles in arc channel. It was shown that increasing in initial particle density and discharge current rise rate leads to the significant increasing of arc temperature.