In recent years, capillary discharge plasma has been popular in propulsion, fusion and other fields, and is usually regarded as a high heat flux source for material research. Metal wires are often selected as the ignition for capillary discharge because of the low ignition time dispersion. Focused on the phenomenon of radiation ablation, experiments were carried out to determine the evolution of metallic plasma jets and the mechanism of aluminum foil ablation. It was found that the placement of aluminum foil at the nozzle had little influence on capillary discharge, but more regular boundaries could be observed. The mechanism of aluminum foil unburned and burnt through was studied in terms of optical radiation conduction, corresponding to "propagation" and "burn through" modes respectively

capillary discharge;plasma jet;ablation;radiative heat flux