Augmentation of Plasma-Based Impulse Generation with Rapid Chemical Reactions

The use of a chemical explosive mixture to augment the vaporizing foil actuator (VFA) and laser impact welding (LIW) processes is introduced in this study. A liquid explosive known as Picatinny liquid explosive (PLX) was used to augment the capabilities of both the VFA and LIW processes. The 304 stainless steel flyers 3 mm thick driven by PLX augmented VFA and unaugmented VFA are compared. Similarly, 0.442 mm thick Al3003 flyers driven by laser impact and PLX augmented laser impact are compared. In all cases, a photon Doppler velocimetry (PDV) system was used to collect the velocity–time profiles of the flyers. All PLX augmented experiments showed increases in both flyer acceleration and peak velocity over the same time scales as the unaugmented experiments. This indicates that the PLX-provided impulse occurs at the same time as the VFA/laser impulse. The augmented VFA experiments showed a 28% velocity increase over the unaugmented experiments at 10 kJ input energy. The augmented laser impact process exhibited peak flyer velocities 236% higher than laser impact using only the laser. Here we demonstrate that chemical augmentation is capable of significantly increasing flyer velocities for both VFA and LIW at the same input energies and under similar conditions. This development should expand the repertoire of flyer materials and thicknesses that can be impact welded by VFA and LIW.