NNSA Ignition Review Panel; National Ignition Campaign Review--June 2-3, 2011 Volume 3
Washington DC: National Nuclear Security Administration, 2011. Presumed First thus. Held together with a binder clip. Volume 3 ONLY. C. Deeney's copy, per cover sheet. While stated as Volume 3, this appears to be a stand-alone item, documenting the Third Review Panel Meeting. It is labeled on the cover shee as NIC Preliminary Data. The agenda covers June 2 and June 3, 2011. Among the topics and presentations (at tabs) are NIC Overview by E. Moses, NIC Technical Framework by J. Lindl, Ignition Tuning Experiments by N. Landen, Progress on Target Layering by J. Atherton, Implosion Experiments by J. Edwards, and ITF/ITFX Assessment by J. Lindl, and NIC FY11 Go-Forward Schedule by J. Atherton. The presentations are printed with four frames per page, with substantial use of color. The National Ignition Facility (NIF), is a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device, located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. NIF uses lasers to heat and compress a small amount of hydrogen fuel with the goal of inducing nuclear fusion reactions. NIF's mission is to achieve fusion ignition with high energy gain, and to support nuclear weapon maintenance and design by studying the behavior of matter under the conditions found within nuclear weapons. NIF is the largest and most energetic ICF device built to date, and the largest laser in the world. The National Ignition Campaign (NIC) was a multi-institution effort established under the National Nuclear Security Administration of DOE in 2005, prior to the completion of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in 2009. The scope of the NIC was the planning and preparation for and the execution of the first 3 yr of ignition experiments (through the end of September 2012) as well as the development, fielding, qualification, and integration of the wide range of capabilities required for ignition. Besides the operation and optimization of the use of NIF, these capabilities included over 50 optical, x-ray, and nuclear diagnostic systems, target fabrication facilities, experimental platforms, and a wide range of NIF facility infrastructure. The goal of ignition experiments on the NIF is to achieve, for the first time, ignition and thermonuclear burn in the laboratory via inertial confinement fusion and to develop a platform for ignition and high energy density applications on the NIF. The goal of the NIC was to develop and integrate all of the capabilities required for a precision ignition campaign and, if possible, to demonstrate ignition and gain by the end of FY12. The goal of achieving ignition can be divided into three main challenges. The first challenge is defining specifications for the target, laser, and diagnostics with the understanding that not all ignition physics is fully understood and not all material properties are known. The second challenge is designing experiments to systematically remove these uncertainties. The third challenge is translating these experimental results into metrics designed to determine how well the experimental implosions have performed relative to expectations and requirements and to advance those metrics toward the conditions required for ignition. At project completion in 2009, NIF lacked almost all the diagnostics and infrastructure required for ignition experiments. About half of the 3 yr period covered in this review was taken up by the effort required to install and performance qualify the equipment and experimental platforms needed for ignition experiments. Ignition on the NIF is a grand challenge undertaking and the results presented here represent a snapshot in time on the path toward that goal. The path forward presented at the end of this review summarizes plans for the Ignition Campaign on the NIF, which were adopted at the end of 2012, as well as some of the key results obtained since the end of the NIC. Condition: Very good.
Keywords: National Ignition Campaign, National Ignition Facility, Target Layering, Implosion Experiments, Tuning Experiments, Technical Framework, ITF/ITFX Assessment, Inertial Confinement Fusion
[Book #80403]
Price: $125.00