Configuring the National Ignition Facility for direct-drive experiments
- ed.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a project whose primary mission is to provide an above-ground experimental capability for maintaining nuclear competence and weapons effects simulation, and to pursue the achievement of fusion ignition utilizing solid state lasers as the energy driver. In this facility a large number of laser beams are focused onto a small target located at the center of a spherical target chamber. The laser energy is delivered in a few billionths of a second, raising the temperature and density of the nuclear materials in the target to levels where significant thermonuclear energy is released. The thermonuclear reaction proceeds very rapidly, so that the target materials remain confined by their own inertia during the thermonuclear reaction. This type of approach is called inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The proposed project is described in a conceptual design report (CDR) that was released in May 1994. Early in FY95, a collaboration between the University of Rochester and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was established to study reconfiguring the NIF to accommodate direct-drive experiments. The present paper is a report to the scientific community, primarily the scientists and engineers working on the design of the NIF. It represents results from work in progress, specifically work completed by the end of the second quarter FY95. This report has two main sections. The first describes the target requirements on the laser drive, and the second part describes how the NIF laser can be configured to accommodate both indirect and direct drive. The report includes a description of the scientific basis for these conclusions. Though a complete picture does not exist, the present understanding is sufficient to conclude that the primary target requirements and laser functional requirements for indirect and direct drive are quite compatible. It is evidently straightforward to reconfigure the NIF to accommodate direct and indirect drive.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 104970
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-ID-120758; ON: DE95017854; TRN: 95:006974
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Jul 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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