Control of Velocity, Driving Pressure, and Planarity During Flyer Launch with Vaporizing Foil Actuator
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Date
2014
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Abstract
Electrically-driven rapid vaporization of thin conductors produces a high-pressure pulse
which can be used to accelerate thin metal sheets to high velocities. Recently, vaporizing
foil actuators (VFA) have been applied toward a variety of impulse-based metalworking
operations such as collision welding, closed-die forming, embossing, and shearing. To
better apply VFA to different purposes, it is necessary to develop an understanding of how
variations on the characteristics of the foil actuator affect its mechanical impulse
generation. In this work, actuators made out of 0.0508, 0.0762, and 0.127 mm thick full
hard temper AA1145 foil were used to launch 0.508 mm thick AA2024-T3 sheets toward a
photonic Doppler velocimeter (PDV) probe. Launch velocities ranging between 300 and
1000 m/s were observed over a distance of less than 3 mm, and repeated trials
demonstrated repeatable results. Velocity, current and voltage traces were used to
examine the effect of deposited energy on average pressure and resulting velocity for foil
actuators of various thicknesses. The planarity of the flyer sheets’ launch and flight was
demonstrated with 0.0762 mm foil actuators by experiments that employed multiple PDV
probes simultaneously recording the velocity evolution at different locations across the
surface of the flyer.
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Keywords
Impulse metalworking, Vaporizing foil actuator (VFA), Collision welding