EROSION OF EXPLOSIVELY COMPACTED MO CU ELECTRODES IN HIGH-CURRENT ARCDISCHARGES/

The erosion of molybdenum-copper composites produced by the explosive powder-compacting method has been studied in order to analyze the pote ntial for their use as railgun electrodes. The results of experiments have shown that the erosion of Mo/Cu compacts at the same values of cu rrent impulse (I-max=180 kA, T(max)approximate to 50 mu s, integral Id t=15 C, integral I(2)dt=1.7 . 10(6) A(2) . s) is about 10 times less t hen the erosion of pure copper and is about 3 time less then the erosi on of pure molybdenum. The loss of mass data curve has a flat minimum for molybdenum contents of 20 to 80 wt.%.