The Refurbished Z Facility: Capabilities and Recent Experiments

Matzen, M. K.; Atherton, Briggs W.; Cuneo, M. E.; Donovan, G.L.; Hall, C. A.; Herrmann, Mark; Kiefer, Mark L.; Leeper, R. J.; Leifeste, G.T.; Long, F. W.; McKee, G. R.; Mehlhorn, T. A.; Porter, J. L.; Schneider, Larry X.; Struve, K. W.; Stygar, W. A.; Weinbrecht, E.A.

doi:10.12693/aphyspola.115.956

Cited by 44 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Energy is transferred from the IS to water-insulated PFL, which then discharges through a set of self-break water switches [71,72] into OTL1. In the ZR design, the transition from the coaxial PFL to the triplate OTL1 is done abruptly at the first set of water switches to minimize reflections and to conserve radial length [73,74]. The OTL1 discharges through a set of self-break pulse-sharpening water switches into OTL2, which in turn delivers power to the water convolute.…”

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-dimensional electromagnetic model of the pulsed-powerZ-pinch accelerator

Rose

Welch

Madrid

et al. 2010

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A three-dimensional, fully electromagnetic model of the principal pulsed-power components of the 26-MA ZR accelerator [D. H. McDaniel et al., in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Dense Z-Pinches (AIP, New York, 2002), p. 23] has been developed. This large-scale simulation model tracks the evolution of electromagnetic waves through the accelerator's intermediate-storage capacitors, lasertriggered gas switches, pulse-forming lines, water switches, triplate transmission lines, and water convolute to the vacuum insulator stack. The insulator-stack electrodes are coupled to a transmissionline circuit model of the four-level magnetically insulated vacuum-transmission-line section and doublepost-hole convolute. The vacuum-section circuit model is terminated by a one-dimensional self-consistent dynamic model of an imploding z-pinch load. The simulation results are compared with electrical measurements made throughout the ZR accelerator, and are in good agreement with the data, especially for times until peak load power. This modeling effort demonstrates that 3D electromagnetic models of large-scale, multiple-module, pulsed-power accelerators are now computationally tractable. This, in turn, presents new opportunities for simulating the operation of existing pulsed-power systems used in a variety of high-energy-density-physics and radiographic applications, as well as even higher-power nextgeneration accelerators before they are constructed.1 Each simulation used 144 processors on the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) Thunderbird computer system and required approximately 24 hours of total run time. This computer system was designed and built by SNL and Dell [65] and contains 8960 Intel [66] Xeon processors operating at 3.6 GHz and uses the Infiniband interconnect architecture [67].

show abstract

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-dimensional electromagnetic model of the pulsed-powerZ-pinch accelerator

Rose

Welch

Madrid

et al. 2010

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In practice, (2) is not immediately useful in solving the transport equation unless the plasma is known to be in LTE, in which case the atomic populations can be directly obtained from the Saha-Boltzmann equations. This is discussed in more detail in Section IV.…”

Section: Radiation Transport: Concepts and Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As higher current Z-pinch drivers have been built, measured powers and yields of X-rays up to energies of ∼20 keV have increased invariably. The 20-MA refurbished Z generator [2] at Sandia National Laboratories is the current record holder in these categories. Pulsed-power generators that drive Z-pinches are energy rich.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiation Transport in Z-Pinches

Apruzese

Giuliani

2015

IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Z-pinches, formed by passing large currents through wires or gas puffs, are the most powerful and energetic laboratory sources of X-rays. As higher current generators become available, Z-pinches incorporate increasingly larger masses of plasma and are nearly always optically thick to some or most of the photons that they produce. Understanding and modeling the transport of this radiation is an important element in attaining an overall picture of the physics of Z-pinches and in optimizing their properties for applications. This paper focuses on the aspects of radiation transport that are most relevant to the Z-pinch environment. The topics covered include: theory of radiation transport and its strengths and limitations, sources of opacity in Z-pinches, requirements for local thermodynamic equilibrium in the presence of opacity, transition to the blackbody limit, and Z-pinch experiments that demonstrate the effects of radiation transport.

show abstract

“…At Sandia's Z backlighter laser facility, a 1 cm thick, fused silica debris shield is used to protect the final focusing lens of the Z-beamlet laser (ZBL) [12] from the explosive fragments (see Fig. 1) that are generated by the Z accelerator [13]. This electrical pulsed power machine generates 2 MJ of Z-pinch x rays at 300 TW for a variety of highenergy density applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debris mitigation techniques for petawatt-class lasers in high debris environments

Schwarz

Rambo

Kimmel

et al. 2010

Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper addresses debris mitigation techniques for two different kinds of debris sources that are found in the high-energy density community. The first debris source stems from the laser-target interaction and this debris can be mitigated by avoiding a direct line of sight to the debris source (e.g. by using a sacrificial fold mirror) or by inserting a thin debris shield. Several thin film debris shields have been investigated and nitrocellulose was found to be the best suited. The second debris source originates from an external high-energy density driver or experiment. In our specific case, this is the Z accelerator, a Z-pinch machine that generates 2 MJ of x rays at 300 TW. The center section of the Z accelerator is an extremely violent environment which requires the development of novel debris mitigation approaches for backlighting with petawatt lasers. Two such approaches are presented in this paper. First, a self-closing focusing cone. In our facility, the focused beam on target is fully enclosed inside a solid focusing cone. In the first debris mitigation scenario, the last part of the cone has a ''flapper'' that should seal the cone when the pressure wave from the Z-pinch explosion hits it. In the second scenario, an enclosed target assembly is used, with the last part of the focusing cone connected to a ''target can'' which houses the laser target. The laser produced x rays for backlighting escape through a 3 mm diameter hole that is protected by an x-ray filter stack. Both techniques are discussed in detail and have been successfully tested on the Z accelerator.

show abstract

The Refurbished Z Facility: Capabilities and Recent Experiments

Cited by 44 publications

References 4 publications

Three-dimensional electromagnetic model of the pulsed-powerZ-pinch accelerator

Three-dimensional electromagnetic model of the pulsed-powerZ-pinch accelerator

Radiation Transport in Z-Pinches

Debris mitigation techniques for petawatt-class lasers in high debris environments

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About