Preliminary experimental results of tungsten wire-array Z-pinches on primary test stand

The Primary Test Stand (PTS) developed at the China Academy of Engineering Physics is a 20 TW pulsed power driver, which can deliver a similar to 10 MA, 70 ns rise-time (10%-90%) current to a short-circuit load and has important applications in Z-pinch driven inertial confinement fusion and high energy density physics. Preliminary results of tungsten wire-array Z-pinch experiments on PTS are presented. The load geometries investigated include 15-mm-tall cylindrical single and nested arrays with diameter ranging from 13mm to 30 mm, consisting of 132-300 tungsten wires with 5-10 mu m in diameter. Multiple diagnostics were fielded to characterize the x-ray radiation from wire-array Z pinches. The x-ray peak power (similar to 50 TW) and total radiated energy (similar to 500 kJ) were obtained from a single 20-mm-diam array with 80-ns stagnation time. The highest x-ray peak power up to 80 TW with 2.4 ns FWHM was achieved by using a nested array with 20-mm outer diameter, and the total x-ray energy from the nested array is comparable to that of single array. Implosion velocity estimated from the time-resolved image measurement exceeds 30 cm/mu s. The detailed experimental results and other findings are presented and discussed. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.