Electrothermal instability in different modes of underwater electrical wire explosion

Abstract

Electrothermal instability and its effect on the uniformity of discharge channels during underwater electrical wire explosions at different energy deposition rates have been investigated. According to the liquid–vapor transition mechanism, we classified underwater electrical explosion into “phase explosion mode” and “supercritical mode.” Two sets of experiments corresponding to the two modes were conducted, and the exploding wires were observed by a shadow imaging system. Results showed that a bamboo-shaped discharge channel was formed in the phase explosion mode, whereas the discharge channel in the supercritical mode was a uniform cylinder. Self-consistent magnetohydrodynamic simulation results indicated that exploding wires transfer into liquid–vapor coexistence phase in the phase explosion mode, accompanied by a rapid increase in the density perturbation and the formation of bamboo-shaped structures. Moreover, a small perturbation model was derived to analyze the electrothermal instability in different thermodynamic states. It was indicated that the density perturbation is easier to grow in the liquid–vapor coexistence state than the supercritical state, which provides a theoretical explanation for the differences between the two electrical explosion modes.