Development of a Pulsed High Current Facility for Accelerating Metal Foils for Hydrodynamic Materials Testing

A new pulsed power machine to be called AMPERE is currently under development at AWE. Its initial use will be as a metallic foil accelerator for the specific purpose of applying large impulses (> 300 Pa s) and pressures (> 450 G Pa) to a target for material property testing. The critical circuit features are described and a computer model has been written to predict the expected machine performance. Future uses of this facility for driving further hydrodynamic experimentation are also discussed.