Numerical Study of Z-pinch Dynamics at Different Working Regimes

Abstract

Mass sweeping and current efficiency factors (fm and fi) are two important parameters in Z-pinch devices, because one can compute those to better analyze Z-pinch dynamics. In this paper, the advanced shock model was employed to calculate and compare the aforementioned parameters for ACOL Z-pinch in three different working regimes. It was found that fm is in the range of 0.12–0.13 for hydrogen gas at p0 = 400 and 800 Pa pressures and fm = 0.13 for helium gas at p0 = 260 Pa. Similar works have resulted fm in the range 0.10–0.16. Therefore our computations of fm values (range 0.1–0.13) agree with the fm range, and it confirms our model. Therefore, the factors can be precisely being calculated using advanced shock model for various Z-pinch systems at different working regimes. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.