Measuring and simulating ice–ablator mix in inertial confinement fusion
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, DAM, Arpajon (France)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
Fuel–ablator mix has been established as a major performance degrading effect in the burning plasma regime of recent inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. As such, the study of fuel–ablator mix with experiments and simulations can provide valuable insight for our understanding of these experiments and establish a path for even higher yields and increased robustness. Here we present a novel high-yield experimental ICF design that is motivated by recent experiments measuring ice–ablator mix with a CH ablator instead of a high-density carbon (HDC) ablator. Here we review these experiments in more detail and describe the modeling assumptions and parameters used to obtain agreement with the data from implosion and burn simulations with mix. Using this mix model calibrated a posteriori to the experimental data, we design an implosion that uses a CH ablator that is predicted to achieve better performance than a recent experiment that achieved net target gain of 1.5 in HDC. Because hydrodynamic instabilities are greatly reduced with this new design, we also expect a high reproducibility at the same implosion adiabat as current record yield experiments.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-07NA27344
- OSTI ID:
- 2217420
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-JRNL-845186; 1068594; TRN: US2407064
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 30, Issue 5; ISSN 1070-664X
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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