Sensitivity of yield and compression to velocity, shock timing, coast time and asymmetry in indirect-drive NIF implosions*

ORAL

Abstract

The yield and fuel compression sensitivity to various drive parameters for the >100 NIF indirect-drive cryogenic DT implosions performed to date is empirically examined across all scales, ablators and in-flight adiabats. Low mix yields normalized by fuel mass increase with velocity, and increase with fuel compression after normalizing out velocity, but only up to a point. Compression remains sensitive to shock merge depths and coast times [1] even at higher adiabats. Mass and velocity normalized yields and compressions drop by factors 1.5-3x in the presence of measured large mode 1 and 2 asymmetries. The trends will be compared to analytic expressions [2,3] and the hypotheses for some notable outliers will be discussed.

[1] O. Hurricane et. al. Phys. Plasmas 24, 092706 (2017)

[2] J. Lindl et. al, submitted to Physics Plasmas

[3] R. Kishony and D. Shvarts, Phys. Plasmas 8, 4925 (2001)

–

Presenters

  • Otto L Landen

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Authors

  • Otto L Landen

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Paul T Springer

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab

  • C. A Thomas

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  • Pravesh K Patel

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab

  • John D Lindl

    Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab

  • Dov Shvarts

    Nuclear Research Center Negev, Israel, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, Nuclear Research Center NEGEV, Israel, Ben-Gurion University, Israel, NRCN, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Ben Gurion Univ of the Negev