Electrical wire explosion by power current pulse is suitable instrument for fundamental research of different physical phenomena for high energy densities. There is many different technological applications used electrical explosion of wires.
Assuming small changes of wire shape and equality both of electron and ion temperatures, numerical simulation of initial stage of the electrical explosion was carried out [1–2]. The liquid metal does not break down into phases according to ordinary equilibrium phase conditions. Metastable (superheated) state of the liquid metal appears in this case (nanosecond explosion). Results of mathematical modeling testify that the wire kern is uniform up to explosion moment.
Sufficient disagreements with experimental data appear by excluding metastable state for the liquid metal. Non-uniform density dependencies against radius are obtained in this case.
Figures 1, 2 demonstrate changes of liquid metal state for wire explosion on the pressure-temperature plane and density-temperature plane respectively [2].
Figure 1: Dependencies of pressure against temperature for axial (r = 0.02a) and outer (r = 0.98a) wire layers. Lines: the black solid line is liquid-gas binodal, s — gas spinodal, l — liquid spinodal.
Figure 2: Dependencies of density against temperature for axial (r = 0.02a) and outer (r = 0.98a) wire layers. Lines: the black solid line is liquid-gas binodal, l — liquid spinodal. Symbols correspond to experimental data obtained at microsecond wire explosion.