Development and modeling of a polar-direct-drive exploding pusher platform at the National Ignition Facility

Ellison, C. Leland; Whitley, Heather D.; Brown, Colin R.  D.; Copeland, Sean R.; Garbett, Warren J.; Le, Hai P.; Schneider, Marilyn B.; Walters, Zachary B.; Chen, Hui; Castor, John I.; Craxton, R. Stephen; Gatu Johnson, Maria; Garcia, Emma M.; Graziani, Frank R.; Kemp, G. Elijah; Krauland, Christine M.; McKenty, Patrick W.; Lahmann, Brandon; Pino, Jesse E.; Rubery, Michael S.; Scott, Howard A.; Shepherd, Ronnie; Sio, Hong

doi:10.1063/1.5025724

Title: Development and modeling of a polar-direct-drive exploding pusher platform at the National Ignition Facility

Journal Article · 30 July 2018 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5025724 · OSTI ID:1566028

Ellison, C. Leland ^[1];

^[1]; Brown, Colin R. D. ^[2]; Copeland, Sean R. ^[1]; Garbett, Warren J. ^[2];

^[1];

^[1]; Walters, Zachary B. ^[1]; Chen, Hui ^[1]; Castor, John I. ^[1];

^[3];

^[4]; Garcia, Emma M. ^[3];

^[1]; Kemp, G. Elijah ^[1]; Krauland, Christine M. ^[5];

^[3];

^[4]; Pino, Jesse E. ^[1]; Rubery, Michael S. ^[2] more »

Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Berkshire (United Kingdom)
Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)

High-intensity laser facilities, such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF), allow the experimental investigation of plasmas under extreme, high-energy-density conditions. Motivated by validating models for collisional heat-transfer processes in high-energy-density plasmas, we have developed an exploding pusher platform for use at the NIF in the polar-direct-drive configuration. The baseline design employs a 3 mm-diameter capsule, an 18 μm-thick CH ablator, and Ar-doped D₂ gas to achieve several keV electron-ion temperature separations with relatively low convergence ratios. In an initial series of shots at the NIF—N160920–003, -005, and N160921–001—the ratio of the laser intensity at different polar angles was varied to optimize the symmetry of the implosion. In this work, we summarize experimental results from the shot series and present pre- and post-shot analysis. Although the polar-direct-drive configuration is inherently asymmetric, we successfully tuned a post-shot 1D model to a set of key implosion performance metrics. The post-shot model has proven effective for extrapolating capsule performance to higher incident laser drive. Overall, the simplicity of the platform and the efficacy of the post-shot 1D model make the polar-direct-drive exploding pusher platform attractive for a variety of applications beyond the originally targeted study of collisional processes in high-energy-density plasmas.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-07NA27344; PECASE

OSTI ID:: 1566028

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1462156

Report Number(s):: LLNL-JRNL-744974; 899581; TRN: US2000961

Journal Information:: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 7; ISSN 1070-664X

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 21 works

Citation information provided by
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