Ultra-High Pressure Shock Compression at the Sandia Z Accelerator.*

The Sandia Z accelerator is capable of producing $>$20 MA current pulses with $\sim $200 ns rise-time into short circuit loads, generating intense magnetic fields within the anode-cathode gap. The resulting Lorentz force enables Z to be used very effectively in accelerating plates to ultra-high velocity. Experiments have been directed toward highly accurate dynamic material studies. In particular, emphasis has been placed on launching planar, solid density flyer plates to velocities exceeding 30 km/s for use in equation of state (EOS) studies at high-pressure. Velocities up to 34 km/s have been obtained with aluminum flyer plates several mm in lateral dimensions and a few hundred microns in thickness, enabling highly accurate Hugoniot measurements to multi-Mbar. Emphasis will be placed on predictive magneto-hydrodynamic modeling and EOS results obtained for aluminum and deuterium.