Acceleration of the wall of a conducting cylinder undergoing thermal expansion in a strong magnetic field

Calculations are made of the abrupt acceleration of the wall of a cylinder undergoing heating in a strong magnetic field. It is shown that the expansion of a thin-walled liquid-metal cylinder resembles an “explosive instability”; in the model used, the velocity of the boundary and the azimuthal current increase without bound in a finite time. It is noted that this effect may also be observed for an elastic shell, and the influence of the electromagnetic retarding forces does not eliminate the singularity in the solution, but merely shifts the time when it appears. Pis’ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 23, 10–16 (June 12, 1997)