Current/performance scaling studies for the Atlas project
Atlas is a high energy pulse power facility being built at Los Alamos to enhance the ability to address issues relevant to the Department of Energy`s stockpile stewardship program. Projected to be operational by 1999, Atlas is designed to deliver between forty to fifty megaamperes of current to an imploding cylindrical load, nominally a 70 gram aluminum liner. Because of the current levels and the energy densities generated, much consideration has been given to the type of transmission line required to deliver current to the load. The merits and disadvantages of several designs have been studied and debated over the past year. As part of this study the authors have investigated the effect of changes in machine inductance on liner performance. Typically, whenever one tries to reduce inductance in order to increase current, the engineering design for a machine becomes more stringent. To address the issue of making changes in transmission line (TL) inductance they have used a one-dimensional MHD model to calculate the peak velocities for an aluminum liner, and the maximum pressures that can be generated when the liner impacts an aluminum target. The thicknesses and radii of the lines have been optimized for a range of transmission line inductances that corresponds to the two principal proposed TL concepts. For these simulations they define performance to relate to the pressures generated in the target, although for some experiments this may not be the best indicator. The results indicate that an increase in inductance of x% results in a decrease in target pressure of approximately x/2%. The two primary designs for the Atlas transmission line differ in inductance by 35%, implying a difference in performance of 17%, with the lower inductance design generating the higher pressure in the target.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 563285
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-97-3217; CONF-971082-; ON: DE98001344; TRN: AHC29803%%122
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 11. biennial nuclear explosive design explosive physics conference, Livermore, CA (United States), 20-24 Oct 1997; Other Information: PBD: [1997]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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