Dynamic Compression Science at Sandia's Z Machine

The Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories, the world’s most powerful pulsed-power facility, has been used since 1999 to perform dynamic compression experiments on many different materials. These experiments use the high magnetic fields generated by Z to drive shockless ramp loading, impact shock loading, and, more recently, combined shock-ramp loading to investigate equations of state, phase transitions, and material strength under extreme pressure and temperature conditions. This poster will present the ramped magnetic-pressure drive concept as realized at Z, along with at least three different examples of recent results in dynamic compression science.