Study of Plasma Liner Driven Magnetized Target Fusion Via Advanced Simulations

Samulyak, Roman V.¹  Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)]  Parks, Paul² 

[1] State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Stony Brook, NY (United States);General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)

关键词: plasma liner;    magneto-inertial fusion;    supersonic plasma jet;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1170367
RP-ID  :  DE-SC0004524_55906_A_11
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1170367

学科分类：原子、分子光学和等离子物理

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

The feasibility of the plasma liner driven Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) via terascale numerical simulations will be assessed. In the MTF concept, a plasma liner, formed by merging of a number (60 or more) of radial, highly supersonic plasma jets, implodes on the target in the form of two compact plasma toroids, and compresses it to conditions of the fusion ignition. By avoiding major difficulties associated with both the traditional laser driven inertial confinement fusion and solid liner driven MTF, the plasma liner driven MTF potentially provides a low-cost and fast R&D path towards the demonstration of practical fusion energy. High fidelity numerical simulations of full nonlinear models associated with the plasma liner MTF using state-of-art numerical algorithms and terascale computing are necessary in order to resolve uncertainties and provide guidance for future experiments. At Stony Brook University, we have developed unique computational capabilities that ideally suite the MTF problem. The FronTier code, developed in collaboration with BNL and LANL under DOE funding including SciDAC for the simulation of 3D multi-material hydro and MHD flows, has beenbenchmarked and used for fundamental and engineering problems in energy science applications. We have performed 3D simulations of converging supersonic plasma jets, their merger and the formation of the plasma liner, and a study of the corresponding oblique shock problem. We have studied the implosion of the plasma liner on the magnetized plasma target by resolving Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in 2D and 3D and other relevant physics and estimate thermodynamic conditions of the target at the moment of maximum compression and the hydrodynamic efficiency of the method.