The Electrical Specific Action to Melt of Structural Copper and Aluminum Alloys

This paper describes an exploding wire experiment to measure the electrical specific action to melt of structural alloys of copper and aluminum, including C10100, C11000, C18000, C18200, Al6061, and Al7075. These alloys, which are commonly used in railguns and other pulsed power devices, are not produced in fine wire form. Instead of wires, we developed a technique to test macroscopic samples (0.25 mm × 0.5 mm cross section) manufactured with wire electrical discharge machining. This paper includes a description of the design considerations for such macroscopic exploding wire experiments.