Electrical wire explosion as a source of underwater shock waves

Abstract

The underwater electrical wire explosion (UEWE) is an appealing source of underwater shock waves (SWs) with a high conversion efficiency from electrical energy to mechanical energy, good repeatability and controllability. Industrial applications are already seen in oil-well unblocking and stratum stimulation, and research is currently underway to apply UEWEs in electro-hydraulic forming, exploitation of unconventional gas and oil resources, etc. The emerging new applications call for a review on UEWE research from the perspective of an efficient SW source. This review paper considers the physical processes and numerical simulation methods, electrical and SW characteristics, and current and potential applications, and provides suggestions for future research directions. The code (XJ_UEWE01) developed by the authors to solve a coupling model of UEWE is included. The paper will provide students and researchers new to this field with an explanation of basic concepts of UEWE and a detailed overview of previous studies, and will aid research on UEWE applications, especially device development and parameter optimization.

Two-dimensional simulation of microsecond-timescale underwater electrical explosion of a copper wire

“…For figures 5(c) and (d), the UEWEs are in the breakdown mode, where the energy storage is sufficient to create a conductive plasma channel via electric breakdown shortly after the phase explosion (current-restrike), and the current then experiences underdamped oscillation. The matched mode and breakdown mode can both be used to obtain strong underwater SWs due to their relatively high efficiency of electrical to mechanical energy conversion (∼20%) [7]. The discharge waveforms calculated show satisfactory consistency with the experimental results, which proves the rationality of the simulation model within a relatively large parameter range.…”

“…The distribution of magnetic flux density is then determined by solving equation (7) (the Ampere's law) instead of the full magnetic diffusion equation [31]:…”

“…The phase explosion refers to the rapid transition from a metastable overheated liquid state to a mixture of metal vapor and droplets, which can be initiated due to inwardpropagating vaporizing wave or the wire approaching critical state [7]. However, in the current EOS model, the liquid-vapor state is simplified by the Gibbs energy minimization method, which losses the details of phase transition and the exploding product is homogeneous with pressure and temperature determined by local density and internal energy instead of a vapor-droplet mixture.…”

“…UEWE can serve as an efficient source of underwater SWs with good repeatability and controllability [1,2], and can be potentially applied in electrohydraulic forming, oil-well unblocking and stratum stimulation, food processing, * Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. etc [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Recently, SW fracturing by combining low sensitivity energetic materials and electrical wire explosion has proved its feasibility in the exploitation of unconventional fossil resources such as coal bed methane and shale gas [11][12][13][14].…”

Detonation of a nitromethane-based energetic mixture driven by electrical wire explosion

“…Underwater electrical wire explosions (UEWEs) can generate strong underwater shock waves (SWs) due to rapid expansion of the exploding product and the low compressibility of water. They have potential applications in reservoir stimulation, electrohydraulic forming, non-thermal food processing, etc [1][2][3][4]. In the field of unconventional gas and oil exploitation, dynamic fracturing of reservoirs via UEWE SWs is considered as a supplement to or possible substitute for hydraulic * Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.…”