PHELIX

Journal Article · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/PPC.2009.5386288· OSTI ID:971325

Rousculp, Christopher L ^[1]; Turchi, Peter J ^[1]; Reass, William A ^[1]; Oro, David M ^[1]; Greigo, Jeffery R ^[1]; Reinovsky, Robert E ^[1]; Cox, Brian C ^[2]

---

1. Los Alamos National Laboratory
2. NSTEC-LAO

The Precision, High-Energy density, Liner Implosion eXperiment (PHELIX) pulsed power driver is currently under development at Los Alamos National Laboratory. When operational PHELIX will provide 0.5-1.0 MJ of capacitively stored energy into cm size liners that will reach implosion velocities of 1-4 km/s with approximately 10-20 {micro}s implosion time. Peak load currents will be in the 5-10 MAmp range. To do this the machine will employ a reusable, multi-turn primary, single-turn secondary transformer to couple the 100-120 kV Marx capacitor system to the load. The transformer has been designed toward a coupling coefficient of 0.9. PHELIX is designed to be portable with only an 8 x 25 ft{sup 2} footprint. This will allow the machine to be taken to the experiment designer's diagnostic of choice. The first such diagnostic will the LANL proton-radiography facility. There the multi-frame, high-resolution, imaging capability will be used to study hydrodynamic and material phenomena Crucial to the performance of PHELIX is a multi-turn primary, single-turn secondary, current step-up toroidal transformer, R{sub major} {approx} 30 cm, R{sub minor} {approx} 10 cm. The transformer lifetime should exceed 100 shots. Therefore it is essential that the design be robust enough to survive the magnetic stresses produced by high currents. In order to evaluate our design, two methods have been utilized. First, an analytical evaluation has been performed. By identifying the magnetic forces as J{sub 1}{sup 2}/2 {del}L{sub 1} + J{sub 1}J{sub 2}{del}M{sub 12}, where J{sub 1} and J{sub 2} are currents in two circuits, coupled by mutual inductance M{sub 12} and L{sub 1} is the self-inductance of the circuit carrying current J{sub 1}, analytical estimates of stress can be obtained. These results are then compared to a computational MHD model of the same system and to a full finite-element, electromagnetic simulation.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 971325
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-09-06274; LA-UR-09-6274; TRN: US201004%%87
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
42 ENGINEERING
ACCURACY
CAPACITORS
DESIGN
EVALUATION
HYDRODYNAMICS
IMPLOSIONS
INDUCTANCE
LANL
LIFETIME
LINERS
PEAK LOAD
PERFORMANCE
POWER SYSTEMS
PROTON RADIOGRAPHY
STORED ENERGY
STRESSES
TRANSFORMERS