Inertial Confinement Fusion Target Designs Research Articles

Method of solution of a three-temperature plasma model and its application to inertial confinement fusion target design studies

In this paper the physical and the mathematical model of a three-temperature plasma is presented. The numerical algorithm used to solve this problem is also described. A special technique has been used to treat very rapid electron-ion and electron-radiation energy equipartition rates in inertial fusion plasmas. This model has been incorporated in the one-dimensional computer code medusa-ka. (N. A. Tahir and K. A. Long, ‘‘medusa-ka: A one-dimensional computer code for inertial fusion target design,’’ Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe Report, KfK-3454, 1983). Application of this model to study the problem of ignition and burn propagation in reactor-size inertial fusion targets is also briefly discussed.

Numerical modelling of radiation Marshak Waves

In this paper we discuss the importance of radiation transport in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) target design. It is shown that a self similar solution of non-linear heat conduction can be used to estimate the penetration depth of radiation thermal waves (Marshak Waves) in ion-beam ICF pellets. An improved numerical treatment of non-linear heat conduction has been incorporated into the hydrodynamic code MEDUSA-KA to simulate radiation transport in ICF target design studies. The numerical results have been checked against self-similar solutions and a comparison between the two is presented in this paper. We find good agreement between the two. The necessity of using a high-z radiation shield to protect the fuel from radiative preheat is also discussed.