Abstract
The aim of the present study is to investigate experimentally the mechanism of an exploding wire in water and also to observe the bubble motion induced by an exploding wire. The experiment of an exploding wire is carried out in a water tank. As a metallic wire, a tungsten wire of 0.2mm in diameter and 10mm in length is employed. The electric energy of 50-300J is fed to the wire from a capacitor of 100$\mu$F charged up to 1-2.5kV. The explosion is recorded by a CCD camera with the resolution of 1$\mu$sec. The explosion process of metallic wire is divided into three phases. Phase 1 : As the voltage is applied to the wire, the temperature increases due to Joule heating and the wire emits light. Phase 2 : Then the wire melts and the cylindrical plasma is formed between the electrodes. Up to this stage, strong light emission is observed. Phase 3 : The light emission goes out and a vapor bubble begins to grow spherically. The radius of a bubble oscillates in time, but the amplitude of oscillation diminishes in several cycles.
