An experiment to measure the mass density of a plasma armature

Author

Rogers, John W. ; Thomas, Keith A. ; Clothiaux, Eugkne J. ; Condit, William C.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Auburn Univ., AL, USA

Volume

27

Issue

1

fYear

1991

fDate

1/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

165

Lastpage

168

Abstract

A diagnostic technique for determining the mass density, and possibly the plasma composition, of the plasma armature in the MIDI-3 accelerator free-running arc is described. The armature primarily consists of components of polyethylene and copper, and can reach velocities in excess of 8 km/s. The approach in this proof-of-principle experiment utilizes a flash X-ray source (with X-rays energies from 3 keV to 20 keV), an elliptical X-ray crystal spectrometer, and an appropriate detector array and data acquisition system

Keywords

X-ray spectroscopy; arcs (electric); electromagnetic launchers; plasma density; plasma devices; plasma diagnostic techniques; plasma diagnostics; 8000 m/s; MIDI-3 accelerator; X-rays energies; copper; data acquisition system; detector array; elliptical X-ray crystal spectrometer; flash X-ray source; free-running arc; mass density measurement; plasma armature; plasma composition; polyethylene; Copper; Density measurement; Plasma accelerators; Plasma density; Plasma diagnostics; Plasma measurements; Plasma sources; Plasma x-ray sources; Polyethylene; Spectroscopy;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.101016

Filename

101016