Shumlak, UriKhairi, Amierul Aqil bin2021-10-292021-10-292021-10-292021Khairi_washington_0250O_23551.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/1773/47909Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2021Applying sheared velocity flow to the Z pinch successfully mitigates MHD instabilities, enabling the concept to scale to high energy densities on the ZaP-HD device. This provides a unique platform for studying the plasma material interactions (PMI) of the coaxial configuration in a high temperature environment for a prolonged duration. The inner electrode is exposed to the plasma while forming a part of the discharge current path, resulting in significant erosion of the tungsten-sprayed copper nose cone and contamination of the plasma. A graphite nose cone was installed to investigate its material behavior and effect on pinch performance. Plasma self-emission spectroscopy and magnetic field probes were used to identify impurities, measure ion temperature, and determine stability of the pinch. The resulting pinch produced ion temperatures up to 100 eV, pinch currents of 100 kA and quiescent periods up to 57 µs. These results are comparable to the lower end of the results with copper. An initial scan of the operational parameter space included the power supply charge voltage, compression bank delay time, spectroscopy location, and spectroscopy trigger time. Considerable variability of pinch behavior between pulses was observed. A design for a removable nose cone component is presented for alternative electrode material experiments, along with extensive ex-situ surface topography measurements of targets embedded in the nose cone.application/pdfen-USnonePlasma physicsNuclear engineeringAerospace engineeringAeronautics and astronauticsThesis