Isentropic Compression of Metals, at Multi-Megabar Pressures, Using High Explosive Pulsed Power

Accurate, ultra-high pressure isentropic equation of state EOS data, are required for a variety of applications and materials. Asay 1 reported a new method to obtain these data using pulsed magnetic loading on the Sandia Z-machine. Fast rising current pulses risetimes from 100 to 300 ns at current densities exceeding many MAcm, create continuous magnetic loading up to a few Mbar. As part of a collaborative effort between the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories we are adapting our high explosive pulsed power HEPP methods to obtain isentropic EOS data with the Asay technique. This year we plan to obtain isentropic EOS data for copper and tantalum at pressures up to 2 Mbar eventually we hope to reach several tens of Mbar. We will describe the design of the HEPP systems and show out attempts to obtain EOS data to date.