Heating of the inner surface of an imploding liner compressing megagauss magnetic field

Summary form only given. In experiments at the Air Force Research Laboratory to form, translate, and compress a field reversed plasma configuration (FRC) with an imploding liner, the liner will compress a near-vacuum field to megagauss levels. In our magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the full experiment to date we have used insufficient resolution to address the possibility of plasma formation during the final stage of this compression. In order to remedy this, we have recently performed highly resolved 1-dimensional MHD simulations to assess the heating to vaporization and possibly to ionization of the inner surface of the imploding liner by the highly compressed field with MACH2. These simulations use SESAME tabular equations of state for the aluminum that include the Maxwell construction of equilibrium mixtures of saturated vapor and liquid, and a tabular resistivity due to Desjarlais. They also employ an arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian mesh to maintain high resolution near the inner surface as it expands at decreasing radius. The liner is driven by a circuit that interacts self- consistently so that its trajectory compares well with data from previous experiments. Simulation liner dynamics and temporal profiles of density, temperature, and field at the liner internal surface will be presented. Preliminary results show compression of magnetic field from the initial 20 kG to 6.5 MG and modest heating of the liner wall to 0.35-0.5 eV. Spatial profiles of density, temperature, velocity, resistivity, and field at peak compression along with a study of sensitivity of results to the quality of the mesh resolution will be shown.