skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Hydrodynamic instabilities and mix studies on NIF: predictions, observations, and a path forward

Journal Article · · Journal of Physics. Conference Series
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [1] more »;  [4];  [5];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [6];  [5];  [5];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [6];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1] « less
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States). Lab. for Laser Energetics
  3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  4. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  5. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  6. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The goals of the Mix Campaign are to determine how mix affects performance, locate the "mix cliff", locate the source of the mix, and develop mitigation methods that allow performance to be increased. We have used several different drive pulse shapes and capsule designs in the Mix Campaign, to understand sensitivity to drive peak power, level of coast, rise time to peak power, adiabat, and dopant level in the capsule. Ablator material mixing into the hot spot has been shown conclusively with x-ray spectroscopy. The observed neutron yield drops steeply when the hot spot mix mass becomes too large. The mix appears to be driven by ablation- front Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. A high foot, higher adiabat drive has a more stable ablation front and has allowed the mix mass in the hot spot to be reduced significantly. We found two recent high foot shots achieved neutron yields > 1015 and measured neutron yield over clean 1D simulation (YOC) > 50%, which was one of the central goals of the Mix Campaign.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; AC52-07NA27344
OSTI ID:
1280925
Journal Information:
Journal of Physics. Conference Series, Vol. 688; ISSN 1742-6588
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 4 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (27)

Point design targets, specifications, and requirements for the 2010 ignition campaign on the National Ignition Facility journal May 2011
Progress towards ignition on the National Ignition Facility journal July 2013
Two-Dimensional Simulation of Fluid Instability in Laser-Fusion Pellets journal May 1975
Self-consistent growth rate of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability in an ablatively accelerating plasma journal January 1985
Analytic solutions for Rayleigh-Taylor growth rates in smooth density gradients journal August 1988
Onset of nonlinear saturation for Rayleigh-Taylor growth in the presence of a full spectrum of modes journal June 1989
Weakly nonlinear hydrodynamic instabilities in inertial fusion journal August 1991
Hydrodynamic stability and the direct drive approach to laser fusion journal May 1990
Nonlinear evolution of multimode Rayleigh–Taylor instability in two and three dimensions journal June 1995
Self‐consistent stability analysis of ablation fronts in inertial confinement fusion journal May 1996
Nonlinear Evolution of Ablation-Driven Rayleigh-Taylor Instability journal February 1981
Nonlinear effects of multifrequency hydrodynamic instabilities on ablatively accelerated thin shells journal January 1982
Rayleigh–Taylor instability on the pusher–fuel contact surface of stagnating targets journal November 1990
Modeling of Nova indirect drive Rayleigh–Taylor experiments journal November 1994
Three-Dimensional Single Mode Rayleigh-Taylor Experiments on Nova journal November 1995
Short-wavelength and three-dimensional instability evolution in National Ignition Facility ignition capsule designs journal August 2011
Observations of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability in laser imploded microballoons journal April 1986
Experimental results on hydrodynamic instabilities in laser‐accelerated planar packages journal June 1990
Single‐mode and multimode Rayleigh–Taylor experiments on Nova journal January 1995
Experimental Comparison of Classical versus Ablative Rayleigh-Taylor Instability journal June 1996
Direct-drive hydrodynamic instability experiments on the GEKKO XII laser journal November 1997
Ablation front Rayleigh–Taylor growth experiments in spherically convergent geometry journal May 2000
Evolution of Shell Nonuniformities near Peak Compression of a Spherical Implosion journal September 2001
Rayleigh-Taylor Growth Stabilization in Direct-Drive Plastic Targets at Laser Intensities of ∼ 1 × 10 15     W / cm 2 journal July 2008
Convergent Rayleigh-Taylor Experiments on the Nova Laser journal December 1999
Hot-Spot Mix in Ignition-Scale Inertial Confinement Fusion Targets journal July 2013
Onset of Hydrodynamic Mix in High-Velocity, Highly Compressed Inertial Confinement Fusion Implosions journal August 2013

Cited By (1)

Compression and burning of a direct-driven thermonuclear target under the conditions of inhomogeneous heating by a multi-beam megajoule laser journal January 2019

Similar Records

Achieving record hot spot energies with large HDC implosions on NIF in HYBRID-E
Journal Article · Wed Jul 21 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · Physics of Plasmas · OSTI ID:1280925
+55 more
Target Diagnostics Supports NIF's Path to Ignition
Technical Report · Wed Dec 07 00:00:00 EST 2011 · OSTI ID:1280925
Progress Toward Ignition on the National Ignition Facility
Technical Report · Mon Oct 17 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · OSTI ID:1280925

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS