Articles you may be interested inDesign of pulsed guiding magnetic field for high power microwave generators Rev. Sci. Instrum. 85, 094703 (2014); 10.1063/1.4894204 Fast modeling of flux trapping cascaded explosively driven magnetic flux compression generators Rev. Sci. Instrum. 84, 014703 (2013); 10.1063/1.4775488Electrical explosion of metals in fast-rising megagauss magnetic fields An experiment has been performed to study the electrical explosion of thick cylindrical conductors using the MIG pulsed power generator capable of producing a peak current of 2.5 MA within 100 ns rise time. The experimental goal was to compare the skin explosion of a solid conductor with that of a double-layer conductor whose outer layer had a lower conductivity than the inner one. It has been shown that in magnetic fields of peak induction up to 300 T and average induction rise rate 3 Â 10 9 T/s, the double-layer structure of a conductor makes it possible to achieve higher magnetic induction at the conductor surface before it explodes. This can be accounted for, in particular, by the reduction of the ratio of the Joule heat density to the energy density of the magnetic field at the surface of a double-layer conductor due to redistribution of the current density over the conductor cross section. V C 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.