Z-Pinch Power Plant Shock Mitigation Experiments, Modeling, and Code Assessment

Abstract

We are investigating attenuation techniques to mitigate the powerful shock that occurs inside the Z-Pinch Power Plant. For this purpose, we conducted a series of experiments at the University of Wisconsin. These experiments consisted of shock waves traveling at greater than Ma 1 that impacted aluminum foam under various configurations. In turn, ABAQUS, ALEGRA, CTH, and DYNA3D were used to simulate one of the experiments in order to validate the codes. Although the behavior of foamed solid and liquid metal is fundamentally different, we considered foamed metal because some disposable components of the ZP-3 (i.e. the RTL) may be designed with metal foam. In addition, the relatively simple experiments should help us determine which codes can better simulate shock waves. In the near future, we will conduct shock experiments using foamed materials such as water, oils, and other metals.