MATERIALS SYNTHESIS WITH HIGH-POWER COAXIAL PLASMA GUNS

THIS PROJECT IS TO UTILIZE HIGH POWER, PULSED COAXIAL PLASMAGUNS, DEVELOPED FOR DOE MAGNETIC FUSION AND DEFENSE PROGRAMS, FOR THE SYNTHESIS OF IMPORTANT NEW NONEQUILIBRIUM MATERIALS. DURING PHASE I, SYSTEMS STUDIES AND EXPLORATORY EXPERIMENTS ARE BEING PERFORMED TO DETERMINE THE TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY OF THIS TECHNOLOGY FOR NOVEL ALLOY MIXING OF METASTABLE MATERIALS FOR METALLURGICAL AND TRIBOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS. THE EXPERIMENTS ARE BEING PERFORMED ON THE LARGE COMPACT TORUS EXPERIMENT FACILITY AT THE LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY. SPECIFIC PROJECT OBJECTIVES ARE (1) TOEVALUATE COMPREHENSIVE DATABASES FOR POTENTIAL MATERIALS PROCESSING APPLICATIONS; (2) TO CONDUCT EXPLORATORY EXPERIMENTS TO MEASURE SYMMETRY, POWER FLOW, AND ENERGY COUPLING; AND (3) TO DEVELOP SYSTEM STUDIES TO JUDGE THE TECHNICAL, ECONOMICAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL FEASIBILITY OF THE METHOD.