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Title: Experimental Validation of the Plasma Kinetic Model

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1427361· OSTI ID:1427361
 [1];  [1]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) events pose serious safety concerns for nuclear weapon handling and maintenance. Current safety analyses operate under overly conservative assumptions resulting in costly safety procedures to inadvertent discharges. Colorado School of Mines has developed a plasma kinetic model coupled with a Maxwell’s equations solver in COMSOL to address these assumptions. A spherical capacitor system was designed to measure current throughout a threshold breakdown. The results will be compared to the simulations run by CSM. This paper details the design process and preliminary results for this validation effort.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1427361
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-18-22164
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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