Enhanced Model for Fast Ignition
- Research Applications Corporation, Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Laser Fusion is a prime candidate for alternate energy production, capable of serving a major portion of the nation's energy needs, once fusion fuel can be readily ignited. Fast Ignition may well speed achievement of this goal, by reducing net demands on laser pulse energy and timing precision. However, Fast Ignition has presented a major challenge to modeling. This project has enhanced the computer code ePLAS for the simulation of the many specialized phenomena, which arise with Fast Ignition. The improved code has helped researchers to understand better the consequences of laser absorption, energy transport, and laser target hydrodynamics. ePLAS uses efficient implicit methods to acquire solutions for the electromagnetic fields that govern the accelerations of electrons and ions in targets. In many cases, the code implements fluid modeling for these components. These combined features, "implicitness and fluid modeling," can greatly facilitate calculations, permitting the rapid scoping and evaluation of experiments. ePLAS can be used on PCs, Macs and Linux machines, providing researchers and students with rapid results. This project has improved the treatment of electromagnetics, hydrodynamics, and atomic physics in the code. It has simplified output graphics, and provided new input that avoids the need for source code access by users. The improved code can now aid university, business and national laboratory users in pursuit of an early path to success with Fast Ignition.
- Research Organization:
- Research Applications Corporation, Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-07ER84723
- OSTI ID:
- 990293
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/ER84723
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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