Pulse power produced dense plasma flows

Principle Investogators: Dr Simon Bland, Professor Sergey Lebdev
Department: Department of Physics
Funding Agency: U.S. Air Force

Project Summary:

Our research into High Energy Density Physics phenomena has demonstrated that pulsed power can be used to generate dense (p~0.1-0.001kgm3) high speed (M>5) streams of warm plasma over cm2 areas. The hgih velocty of the streams (100kms-1) enables mm scale targets to attain quasi-steady state conditions whilst maintaining Reynolds numbers or approximately 1E6, suggesting teh flow is ideal for small scaled hypersonic studies.

This project is developing a novel, compact platform dedicated to studying hypersonic phenomena. The effect of the different experimental configurations ont eh parameters of the plasma flow (denisty, M, Re, enthalpy) will be explored, as will methods to increas cooling of the plasma and reduce its field to enable Mach >10.