Research into Pulsed Power - Applications of strong shock pressure waves generated by underwater exploding wires

The research will focus on applications in the following three domains:
- Defence: the development of compact underwater sources for the generation of strong pressure impulses for various applications requiring the replacement of explosive charges by electromagnetically-driven systems.
- Food industry: the sterilisation of pre-packed food by strong pressure wave
- Recovery of precious metals from e-waste (PCs, mobiles, etc) by shattering items with underwater strong shock waves.
The main aims of the research are:
- Design of a powerful pulsed power exploding wire generator.
- Experiments with various exploding wires for optimising the underwater shock pressure output.
- Development and implementation of specific diagnostic methods, particularly for the measurement of shock pressure.
The PhD research programme will also include participation at international conferences with oral contributions, application for student best paper awards and joint experiments with the Pulsed Power Group at Pau University (France).