Generation of Electrohydraulic Shock Waves by Plasma-Ignited Energetic Materials: II. Influence of Wire Configuration and Stored Energy

Abstract

Electrohydraulic shock waves (SWs) have been used for shale gas exploitation in recent years. The traditional method to generate SWs is underwater pulsed discharge with a water gap load or an electrical wire (EW) load, but the SW energy is limited heavily by the stored energy. To obtain stronger SW, the EW explosion ignited energetic material (EM) load is proposed here. To obtain a good ignition performance, the influence of capacitor charging voltage, stored energy, wire diameter, and wire material (Cu and Mo) were studied. The results show that the higher the charging voltage is, the more effective the ignition is; liquidation and vaporization will affect the discharge but will not ignite the EM explosion effectively; the EMs given in this paper are more sensitive to the arc plasma. Besides, the nonrefractory copper is more suitable for the EM ignition than the refractory molybdenum.