The National Ignition Facility project

Technical Report · Sat Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/376946· OSTI ID:376946

Paisner, J. A.; Boyes, J. D.; Kumpan, S. A.; Sorem, M.

The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) commissioned a Conceptual Design Report (CDR) for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in January 1993 as part of a Key Decision Zero (KD0), justification of Mission Need. Motivated by the progress to date by the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program in meeting the Nova Technical Contract goals established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1989, the Secretary requested a design using a solid-state laser driver operating at the third harmonic (0.35 {mu}m) of neodymium (Nd) glass. The participating ICF laboratories signed a Memorandum of Agreement in August 1993, and established a Project organization, including a technical team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester. Since then, the authors completed the NIF conceptual design, based on standard construction at a generic DOE Defense Program`s site, and issued a 7,000-page, 27-volume CDR in May 1994. Over the course of the conceptual design study, several other key documents were generated, including a Facilities Requirements Document, a Conceptual Design Scope and Plan, a Target Physics Design Document, a Laser Design Cost Basis Document, a Functional Requirements Document, an Experimental Plan for Indirect Drive Ignition, and a Preliminary Hazards Analysis (PHA) Document. DOE used the PHA to categorize the NIF as a low-hazard, non-nuclear facility. This article presents an overview of the NIF project.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 376946
• Report Number(s): UCRL-LR--105820-95; ON: DE96013181
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
DESIGN
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
INERTIAL FUSION DRIVERS
NEODYMIUM LASERS
PROGRESS REPORT
RESEARCH PROGRAMS