No abstract

A coordinated, focused effort is underway to develop Laser Inertial Fusion Energy. The key components are developed in concert with one another and the science and engineering issues are addressed concurrently. Recent advances include: target designs have been evaluated that show it could be possible to achieve the high gains (>100) needed for a practical fusion system.These designs feature a low-density CH foam that is wicked with solid DT and over-coated with a thin high-Z layer. These results have been verified with three independent onedimensional codes, and are now being evaluated with two-and three-dimensional codes. Two types of lasers are under development: Krypton Fluoride (KrF) gas lasers and Diode Pumped Solid State Lasers (DPSSL). Both have recently achieved repetitive 'first light', and both have made progress in meeting the fusion energy requirements for durability, efficiency, and cost. This paper also presents the advances in development of chamber operating windows (target survival plus no wall erosion), final optics (aluminium at grazing incidence has high reflectivity and exceeds the required laser damage threshold), target fabrication (demonstration of smooth DT ice layers grown over foams, batch production of foam shells, and appropriate high-Z overcoats), and target injection (new facility for target injection and tracking studies).

No abstract

No abstract

The evolution of an Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) chamber involves a repetition of short, intense depositions of energy (from target ignition) into a reaction chamber, followed by the turbulent relaxation of that energy through shock waves and thermal conduction to the vessel walls. We present an algorithm for 2D simulations of the fluid inside an IFE chamber between fueling repetitions. Our finite-volume discretization for the Navier-Stokes equations incorporates a Cartesian grid treatment for irregularly-shaped domain boundaries. The discrete conservative update is based on a time-explicit Godunov method for advection, and a two-stage RungeKutta update for diffusion accommodating state-dependent transport properties.Conservation is enforced on cut cells along the embedded boundary interface using a local redistribution scheme so that the explicit time step for the combined approach is governed by the mesh spacing in the uniform grid. The test problems demonstrate second-order convergence of the algorithm on smooth solution profiles, and the robust treatment of discontinuous initial data in an IFE-relevant vessel geometry.