Energy enhancement for deuteron beam fast ignition of a precompressed inertial confinement fusion target
- Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 (United States)
- P-24 Plasma Physics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
- University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052 (Australia)
Fast Ignition (FI) is recognized as a potentially promising approach to achieve the high-energy-gain target performance needed for commercial inertial confinement fusion. Here we consider deuteron beam driven FI which provides not only the 'hot spot' ignition spark, but also extra ''bonus'' fusion energy through reactions in the target. In this study, we estimate the impact of the added deposition energy due to the fusion reactions occurring, based on calculations using a modified energy multiplication factor F{sub c}. The deuteron beam energy deposition range and time are also evaluated in order to estimate the desired deuteron initial energy. It is shown that an average of 30% extra energy can be gained from deuterons with 1 MeV initial energy and 12% from deuterons with 3 MeV initial energy. These results indicate that the energy benefit of this approach could be significant, but a much more comprehensive calculation is needed to realize a full 3D design for realistic experimental studies.
- OSTI ID:
- 21537303
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 18, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3553444; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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