Analysis of Recent Saturn Aluminum PRS Experiments

A set of experiments was recently completed at the SATURN plasma radiation source (PRS) facility at Sandia National Laboratories. The purpose of the experiments was to compare the results of K‐shell yield measurements made on SATURN from aluminum wire array z‐pinch implosions to a similar set of measurements made at the Double EAGLE facility at Physics International, Inc.. These experiments were designed to study the behavior of the kilovolt x‐ray yield from aluminum z‐pinches when a tradeoff is made between the amount of mass imploded and the maximum velocity that is achieved in the implosion. A comparison of the experimental results, however, suggests that a tradeoff between the mass imploded and the implosion initial conditions may be involved in determining the K‐shell emission capabilities of these aluminum array implosions; namely, as the mass of the wires is increased, the coupling between the explosion of each single wire and the implosion of the array itself is increased. A simple wire explosion ...