Experiment to Form and Characterize a Section of a Spherically Imploding Plasma Liner

Hsu, S. C.; Langendorf, S. J.; Yates, K. C.; Dunn, J. P.; Brockington, S.; Case, A.; Cruz, E.; Witherspoon, F. D.; Gilmore, M. A.; Cassibry, J. T.; Samulyak, R.; Stoltz, P.; Schillo, K.; Shih, W.; Beckwith, K.; Thio, Y. C.  F.

doi:10.1109/TPS.2017.2779421

Title: Experiment to Form and Characterize a Section of a Spherically Imploding Plasma Liner

Journal Article · 18 December 2017 · IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TPS.2017.2779421 · OSTI ID:1414263

^[1]; Langendorf, S. J. ^[1]; Yates, K. C. ^[2]; Dunn, J. P. ^[1]; Brockington, S. ^[3]; Case, A. ^[3]; Cruz, E. ^[3]; Witherspoon, F. D. ^[3]; Gilmore, M. A. ^[2];

^[4]; Samulyak, R. ^[5]; Stoltz, P. ^[6]; Schillo, K. ^[4]; Shih, W. ^[5]; Beckwith, K. ^[7]; Thio, Y. C. F. ^[8]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States). Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept.
HyperV Technologies Corp., Chantilly, VA (United States)
Univ. of Alabama, Huntsville, AL (United States). Propulsion Research Center
Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States). Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Statistics
Tech-X Corporation, Boulder, CO (United States)
Tech-X Corporation, Boulder, CO (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
HyperJet Fusion Corporation, Chantilly, VA (United States)

Here, we describe an experiment to form and characterize a section of a spherically imploding plasma liner by merging six supersonic plasma jets that are launched by newly designed contoured-gap coaxial plasma guns. This experiment is a prelude to forming a fully spherical imploding plasma liner using many dozens of plasma guns, as a standoff driver for plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion. The objectives of the six-jet experiments are to assess the evolution and scalings of liner Mach number and uniformity, which are important metrics for spherically imploding plasma liners to compress magnetized target plasmas to fusion conditions. Lastly, this article describes the design of the coaxial plasma guns, experimental characterization of the plasma jets, six-jet experimental setup and diagnostics, initial diagnostic data from three- and six-jet experiments, and the high-level objectives of associated numerical modeling.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396; SC0012704

OSTI ID:: 1414263

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1417824; OSTI ID: 1426785

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-17-28898; BNL-203275-2018-JAAM

Journal Information:: IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. PP, Issue 99; ISSN 0093-3813

Publisher:: IEEECopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Cited By (12)

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Experimental study of ion heating in obliquely merging hypersonic plasma jets Langendorf, Samuel J.; Yates, Kevin C.; Hsu, Scott C. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 26, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5108727	journal	August 2019
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Experimental Measurements of Ion Heating in Collisional Plasma Shocks and Interpenetrating Supersonic Plasma Flows Langendorf, Samuel J.; Yates, Kevin C.; Hsu, Scott C. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1805.09933	text	January 2018
Experimental Study of Ion Heating in Obliquely Merging Hypersonic Plasma Jets Langendorf, Samuel J.; Yates, Kevin C.; Hsu, Scott C. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1905.02276	text	January 2019
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