Shock ignition target design for inertial fusion energy

Schmitt, A. J.; Bates, Jason W.; Obenschain, S. P.; Zalesak, S. T.; Fyfe, David

doi:10.1063/1.3385443

Cited by 76 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Let us take the most optimistic result, a gain of 250 with a 1 MJ KrF laser, assumed to be 7 % efficient [69]. Take a rep rate of 6 Hz so that the same 1.5 GHz of fusion energy is produced as for our assumptions for large ITER and NIF.…”

Section: Laser Fusion For Breedingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Fusion Breeding for Mid-Century Sustainable Power

Manheimer

2014

J Fusion Energ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article is an editorial, which makes the case that fusion breeding (that is using fusion neutrons to breed nuclear fuel for use in conventional nuclear reactors) is the best objective for the fusion program. To make the case, it reviews a great deal of plasma physics and fusion data. Fusion breeding could potentially play a key role in delivering large-scale sustainable carbon-free commercial power by mid-century. There is almost no chance that pure fusion can do that. The leading magnetic fusion concept, the tokamak, is subject to well-known constraints, which we have called conservative design rules, and review in this paper. These constraints will very likely prevent tokamaks from ever delivering economical pure fusion. Inertial fusion, in pure fusion mode, may ultimately be able to deliver commercial power, but the failure to date of the leading inertial fusion experiment, the National Ignition Campaign, shows that there are still large gaps in our understanding of laser fusion. Fusion breeding, based on either magnetic fusion or inertial fusion, greatly relaxes the requirements on the fusion reactor. It is also a much better fit to today's and tomorrow's nuclear infrastructure than is its competitor, fission breeding. This article also shows that the proposed fusion and fission infrastructure, 'The Energy Park', reviewed here, is sustainable, economically and environmentally sound, and poses little or no proliferation risk.

show abstract

Section: Laser Fusion For Breedingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this case, the original compression is at lower inward velocity. NRL did its own calculations on shock ignition [69] in 2010 and confirmed their potential for a KrF laser with zooming capability in a series of one and two dimensional fluid simulations. Shock ignition is now NRL's standard approach to laser fusion.…”

Section: Direct Drivementioning

confidence: 99%

Fusion Breeding for Mid-Century Sustainable Power

Manheimer

2014

J Fusion Energ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Shock-ignited targets have been studied by several authors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. In a previous paper [9] we have analyzed a simple all-DT target, driven by pulses with = 0.35 m and total energy of 250-300 kJ.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Studies on Shock Ignition Targets for Inertial Fusion Energy

et al. 2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Shock-ignited inertial fusion targets are studied by one dimensional and two-dimensional numerical simulations. Most of the study refers to the simple all-DT HiPER baseline target (imploded mass of 0.29 mg); both the reference laser wavelength = 0.35 m, and = 0.25 m are considered. The target achieves 1D gain about 80 (120) with total laser energy of 260 kJ (180 kJ) at = 0.35 m (0.25 m). Operating windows for the parameters of the laser ignition spike are described. According to preliminary simulations, gain 80-100 is also obtained by a scaled target (imploded mass of 1.8 mg) driven by 1.5 MJ of green laser light (0.53 m). Two dimensional simulations indicate robustness to irradiation nonuniformities, and high sensitivity to target mispositioning. This can however be reduced by increasing the power of the ignition spike.

show abstract

“…Specifically, Shock-Ignition appears to improve the target stability [43] during the deceleration phase of direct-drive implosion that suffers Rayleigh-Taylor instability at the hot-spot surface [44^ -7]. NRL has also addressed the interest of shock-ignition for the NIKE KrF laser project for sub-megajoule designs [3,24,41]. For NIF- [40] and LMJ-class [38] facilities, high thermonuclear gains are expected in direct drive approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The last should need zooming technique [20], first proposed by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) [21] for KrF laser fusion and widely used in their DD-target designs [22][23][24], to achieve self-ignited high-gain thermonuclear fusion. Zooming should take benefits of the intrinsic multi-beam quad-structure of LMJ [20,25].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low initial aspect-ratio direct-drive target designs for shock- or self-ignition in the context of the laser Megajoule

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Analysis of low initial aspect ratio direct-drive target designs is carried out by varying the implosion velocity and the fuel mass. Starting from two different spherical targets with a given 300 /xg-DT mass, optimization of laser pulse and drive power allows to obtain a set of target seeds referenced by their peak implosion velocities and initial aspect ratio (A = 3 and A = 5). Self-ignition is achieved with higher implosion velocity for A = 5-design than for A = 3-design. Then, rescaling is done to extend the set of designs to a huge amount of mass, peak kinetic energies and peak areal densities. Self-ignition kinetic energy threshold Ek is characterized by a dependance of Ek ~ v& with ^S-values which depart from self-ignition models. Nevertheless, self-ignition energy is seen lower for smaller initial aspect ratio. An analysis of Two-Plasmons Decay threshold and Rayleigh-Taylor instability e-folding is carried out and it is shown that two-plasmon decay threshold is always overpassed for all designs. The hydrodynamic stability analysis is performed by embedded models to deal with linear and non-linear regime. It is found that the A = 5-designs are always at the limit of disruption of the shell.

show abstract

Shock ignition target design for inertial fusion energy

Cited by 76 publications

References 34 publications

Fusion Breeding for Mid-Century Sustainable Power

Fusion Breeding for Mid-Century Sustainable Power

Studies on Shock Ignition Targets for Inertial Fusion Energy

Low initial aspect-ratio direct-drive target designs for shock- or self-ignition in the context of the laser Megajoule

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About