  This study experimentally examined the explosive fragmentation of thin
ceramic tubes using pulsed power. A thin ceramic tube was threaded on a thin
copper wire, and high voltage was applied to the wire using a pulsed power
generator. This melted the wire and the resulting vapor put pressure on the
ceramic tube, causing it to fragment. We examined the statistical properties of
the fragment mass distribution. The cumulative fragment mass distribution
obeyed the double exponential or power-law with exponential decay. Both
distributions agreed well with the experimental data. We also found that the
weighted mean fragment mass was scaled by the multiplicity. This result was
similar to impact fragmentation, except for the crossover point. Finally, we
obtained universal scaling for fragmentation, which is applicable to both
impact and explosive fragmentation.
