Instability growth for magnetized liner inertial fusion seeded by electro-thermal, electro-choric, and material strength effects
File(s)PecoverLinersPoP.pdf (6.07 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Pecover, JD
Chittenden, JP
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A critical limitation of magnetically imploded systems such as magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) [Slutz et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 056303 (2010)] is the magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instability which primarily disrupts the outer surface of the liner. MagLIF-relevant experiments have showed large amplitude multi-mode MRT instability growth growing from surface roughness [McBride et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 135004 (2012)], which is only reproduced by 3D simulations using our MHD code Gorgon when an artificially azimuthally correlated initialisation is added. We have shown that the missing azimuthal correlation could be provided by a combination of the electro-thermal instability (ETI) and an “electro-choric” instability (ECI); describing, respectively, the tendency of current to correlate azimuthally early in time due to temperature dependent Ohmic heating; and an amplification of the ETI driven by density dependent resistivity around vapourisation. We developed and implemented a material strength model in Gorgon to improve simulation of the solid phase of liner implosions which, when applied to simulations exhibiting the ETI and ECI, gave a significant increase in wavelength and amplitude. Full circumference simulations of the MRT instability provided a significant improvement on previous randomly initialised results and approached agreement with experiment.
Date Issued
2015-10-05
Date Acceptance
2015-09-22
Citation
Physics of Plasmas, 2015, 22 (10)
ISSN
1089-7674
Publisher
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Journal / Book Title
Physics of Plasmas
Volume
22
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© 2015 AIP Publishing LLC. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Physics of Plasmas and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4932328
Sponsor
AWE Plc
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Grant Number
300115146/1
EP/K028464/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Physics, Fluids & Plasmas
Physics
HOT DENSE MATTER
Z-PINCHES
SIMULATIONS
CONDUCTIVITY
EXPLOSION
TARGETS
IMPACTS
MODEL
QEOS
Fluids & Plasmas
0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle And Plasma Physics
0201 Astronomical And Space Sciences
0203 Classical Physics
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
102701