Investigation of magnetic field effects on the mitigation of the magnetohydrodynamic Rayleigh-Taylor instability in fast z-pinch implosions
Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the role that magnetic field diffusion and ohmic heating have on the magnetohydrodynamic Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) development in fast z-pinch implosions. Previous work has indicated these terms can strongly influence the evolution of RT growth, leading to a reduction in RT amplitude, and an improvement in pinch performance. Indeed, Roderick et al have suggested that magnetic smoothing is an important mechanism in linear RT growth. To examine this in more detail, simulations are presented for a 1.4 mg, 25.0 mm diameter tungsten wire array imploded in the Saturn long pulse mode. The 130 ns implosion time of this calculation should enhance any mitigating effects that may be attributed to nonideal MHD. Calculations were performed using the 2D MHD code Mach2. The wire array was approximated by a right cylindrical slab of 1.0 mm width. Both a random density perturbation and single mode density perturbations were incorporated to initiate the instability. In the former case, a 5% cell-to-cell random perturbation was used. This allowed a range of modes to be initially present. In the single mode case, a 1.25 mm wavelength, on the order of the shell thickness, was defined. To isolate the contributions due to field diffusion, joule heating, and equation of state, simulations were run with and without ohmic heating using both constant and material-dependent spitzer resistivities. This analysis was then extended to look at the effect of such parameters on the nested shell load configuration. Detailed analysis of the simulations will be presented.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab., Albuquerque, NM (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 20050990
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 1999 IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science, Monterey, CA (US), 06/20/1999--06/24/1999; Other Information: PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: The 26th IEEE international conference on plasma science, 342 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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