Publications
Conceptual design of a -W pulsed-power accelerator for megajoule-class dynamic-material-physics experiments
Stygar, William A.; Reisman, David R.; Stoltzfus, Brian S.; Austin, Kevin N.; Benage, John F.; Breden, E.W.; Cooper, R.A.C.; Cuneo, M.E.; Davis, Jean-Paul D.; Ennis, J.B.E.; Gard, Paul D.; Greiser, G.W.G.; Gruner, Frederick R.; Haill, Thomas A.; Hutsel, Brian T.; Jones, Peter A.; LeChien, K.R.L.; Leckbee, Joshua L.; Lucero, Diego J.; McKee, George R.; Moore, James M.; Mulville, Thomas D.; Muron, David J.; Root, Seth R.; Savage, Mark E.; Sceiford, Matthew S.; Spielman, R.B.S.; Waisman, Eduardo M.; Wisher, Matthew L.
In this study, we have developed a conceptual design of a next-generation pulsed-power accelerator that is optmized for driving megajoule-class dynamic-material-physics experiments at pressures as high as 1 TPa. The design is based on an accelerator architecture that is founded on three concepts: single-stage electrical-pulse compression, impedance matching, and transit-time-isolated drive circuits. Since much of the accelerator is water insulated, we refer to this machine as Neptune. The prime power source of Neptune consists of 600 independent impedance-matched Marx generators. As much as 0.8 MJ and 20 MA can be delivered in a 300-ns pulse to a 16-mΩ physics load; hence Neptune is a megajoule-class 20-MA arbitrary waveform generator. Neptune will allow the international scientific community to conduct dynamic equation-of-state, phase-transition, mechanical-property, and other material-physics experiments with a wide variety of well-defined drive-pressure time histories. Because Neptune can deliver on the order of a megajoule to a load, such experiments can be conducted on centimeter-scale samples at terapascal pressures with time histories as long as 1 μs.