Yield Sensitivity to Fabrication-Induced Inner Shell Backwall Damage in Double Shell Capsules

In ICF experiments, it is important to understand how capsule fabrication defects can affect implosion performance. Several types of imperfections can occur during double shell capsule fabrication, and we want to understand the individual effects of each. This work investigates the impact of inner shell backwall damage, which is caused by laser overshoot when boring the fill tube hole. Such damage can degrade the capsule performance because it introduces asymmetry, which can cause jetting during the implosion, or can even cause DT gas leakage. To assess the impact of such damage, we performed 2D axisymmetric xRAGE simulations with various defect sizes and compared the resulting DT neutron yields. This work was used to inform target-fabrication specifications for the backwall damage by identifying thresholds below which the yield isn’t significantly degraded.



This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of U.S. Department of Energy (Contract No. 89233218CNA000001).