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Plane thermonuclear detonation waves initiated by proton beams and quasi-one-dimensional model of fast ignition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2014

Alexander A. Charakhch'yan
Affiliation:
Dorodnicyn Computing Centre RAS, Moscow, Russia Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University), Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region, Russia
Konstantin V. Khishchenko*
Affiliation:
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University), Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region, Russia Joint Institute for High Temperatures RAS, Moscow, Russia
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Konstantin V. Khishchenko, Joint Institute for High Temperature RAS, Izhorskaya 13 Bldg 2, Moscow 125412, Russia. E-mail: konst@ihed.ras.ru

Abstract

The one-dimensional problem on bilatiral irradiation by proton beams of the plane layer of condensed DT mixture with length 2H and density ρ0 ≤ 100ρs, where ρs is the fuel solid-state density at atmospheric pressure and temperature of 4 K, is considered. The proton kinetic energy is 1 MeV, the beam intensity is 1019 W/cm2 and duration is 50 ps. A mathematical model is based on the one-fluid two-temperature hydrodynamics with a wide-range equation of state of the fuel, electron and ion heat conduction, DT fusion reaction kinetics, self-radiation of plasma and plasma heating by α-particles. If the ignition occurs, a plane detonation wave, which is adjacent to the front of the rarefaction wave, appears. Upon reflection of this detonation wave from the symmetry plane, the flow with the linear velocity profile along the spatial variable x and with a weak dependence of the thermodynamic functions of x occurs. An appropriate solution of the equations of hydrodynamics is found analytically up to an arbitrary constant, which can be chosen so that the analytical solution describes with good accuracy the numerical one. The gain with respect to the energy of neutrons G ≈ 200 at Hρ0 ≈ 1 g/cm2, and G > 2000 at Hρ0 ≈ 5 g/cm2. To evaluate the ignition energy Eig of cylindrical targets, the quasi-1D model, limiting trajectories of α-particles by a cylinder of a given radius, is suggested. The model reproduces the known theoretical dependence Eig ~ ρ0−2 and gives Eig = 160 kJ for ρ0 = 100ρs ≈ 22 g/cm3.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 
Figure 0

Fig. 1. The target scheme.

Figure 1

Fig. 2. The ion temperature (a, b) and the mass velocity (c, d) as functions of the Lagrangian variable with respect to the free boundary s − sb at t = τpb: ρ0 = 25ρs, Rα = 0.4 mm (a, c) and ρ0 = 100ρs, Rα = 0.1 mm (b, d) for different beams of the same energy, J0 = 1019 W/cm2, τpb = 50 ps (solid lines) and J0 = 1018 W/cm2, τpb = 500 ps (dashed lines).

Figure 2

Fig. 3. The temperature (a, the solid lines correspond to ions, the dashed lines—to electrons), the burn-up rate (b), the density (c) and the mass velocity (d) spatial profiles in the formation of the detonation wave at t = 50 (1), 100 (2), 150 (3), and 200 ps (4) for the target with ρ0 = 100ρs, Rα = 0.1 mm, H = 0.5 mm and for the beam with τpb = 50 ps.

Figure 3

Table 1. The burn-up factors for the targets with ρ0 = 100ρs, H = 0.5 (B0) and 2.5 mm (B1), for different values of the parameter Rα and different models of α-particle transport: the Fokker–Plank equation (FP) and the track method (TM)

Figure 4

Fig. 4. The spatial profiles of the ion temperature (a), the local burn-up factor (b), the density (c) and the mass velocity (d) in reflection of the detonation wave at points of time 200 (1), 250 (2), 300 (3), 350 (4), 400 (5), and 450 ps (6) for the parameters of the problem, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 5

Fig. 5. Mass velocity profiles along the Lagrangian coordinate after reflection of the detonation wave for the same parameters of the problem and the time points as in Figure 4.

Figure 6

Table 2. Comparison of simulated values of φ and ρ with the analytical Eqs. (4.3) and (4.4): the value of C from Eq. (4.3) as well as the relative error δρ for the given value φ and the relative errors δρ40 and δφ40 for C = 40 ps at some points of time t

Figure 7

Fig. 6. Spatial profiles of the ion temperature (a), the local burn-up factor (b), the density (c) an the mass velocity (d) at the time points 0.2 (1), 0.4 (2), 0.6 (3), 0.8 (4), 1 (5), 1.2 (6), 1.4 (7) and 1.8 ns (8), corresponding to the incident (1–4) and the reflected (5–8) detonation waves for H = 2.5 mm (another parameters of the problem are the same as in Fig. 3).

Figure 8

Fig. 7. The time dependence of the burn-up factor for H = 0.5 (1) and 2.5 mm (2) (another parameters of the problem are the same as in Fig. 3); asterisks denote the instant of the detonation wave reflection.

Figure 9

Table 3. The ignition energy for one proton beam Eig, the target mass M, the burn-up factor B and the gain G for three values of ρ0, the cylinder radius Rα0−1 and different values of the layer half-width H determined by two given values of the parameter Hρ0