Electrical conductivities of iron and nickel plasmas are calculated using a nonideal plasma ionization balance model that takes into account the excess free energy due to strong Coulomb couplings between charged particles in the pressure-ionization regime. The electrical conductivities calculated for partially ionized plasmas are in fair agreement with data measured in exploding wire discharge experiments and effectively demonstrate the insulator-metal transition near solid densities.
The magnetohydrodynamic behavior of tungsten wire ablating in wire-array Z pinch discharge on MAGPIE is simulated in a two-dimensional fine-grid domain using the GORGON code. A nonideal resistivity model has been implemented in the simulation to obtain plasma transport coefficients in the high density regime along with a screened hydrogenic model to calculate the radiative cooling. Starting from the initial state of warm dense plasma, the evolution of ablated wire is demonstrated to show its explosion and implosion dynamics as a function of discharge time and then the computed profile of electron density is compared with the contour lines reproduced from the measurement by a laser interferometer during the early stage of discharge. The comparison overall shows a fair agreement in terms of the magnitude and the profile shape while some discrepancies can be attributed to the simplified description of the internal wire core physics. (C) 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinhei
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