Description
The Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion scheme is a magneto-inertial fusion scheme being pursued on the Z machine at SNL, where a centimetre-scale liner filled with fusion fuel axially pre-magnetized is preheated, then imploded by a Lorentz force generated by an axial 20 MA current. Next generation pulsed power facilities aim to produce ≈ 40 – 60 MA, posing the question of how existing results will scale to higher currents.
Work by D.E. Ruiz et al. at the Sandia National Laboratory used similarity scaling to explore the parameter space of MagLIF, arriving at scaling laws for the input parameters of MagLIF experiments to predict the performance at higher load currents. These laws were found to agree well with results from 2D HYDRA simulations.
In this work, 1D simulations were conducted using the radiation-magneto-hydrodynamics code Chimera developed by Imperial College London, to further investigate these scaling laws. Good agreement was found on some metrics (e.g. fusion yield) with the scaling laws and HYDRA results, while large discrepancies were seen with others (e.g. burn width). It was found that increased shock resolution led to improved burn performance in higher resolution Chimera simulations.
Chimera simulations were further used to investigate the effect of the axial B field on plasma conditions and alpha particle trapping, where it was found that the application of the field improved alpha trapping.