Comparison of ablators for the polar direct drive exploding pusher platform
Abstract
We examine the performance of pure boron, boron carbide, high density carbon, and boron nitride ablators in the polar direct drive exploding pusher (PDXP) platform. The platform uses the polar direct drive configuration at the National Ignition Facility to drive high ion temperatures in a room temperature capsule and has potential applications for plasma physics studies and as a neutron source. The higher tensile strength of these materials compared to plastic enables a thinner ablator to support higher gas pressures, which could help optimize its performance for plasma physics experiments, while ablators containing boron enable the possiblity of collecting addtional data to constrain models of the platform. Applying recently developed and experimentally validated equation of state models for the boron materials, we examine the performance of these materials as ablators in 2D simulations, with particular focus on changes to the ablator and gas areal density, as well as the predicted symmetry of the inherently 2D implosion.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2006.15635,
title = {Comparison of ablators for the polar direct drive exploding pusher platform},
author = {Heather D. Whitley and G. Elijah Kemp and Charles Yeamans and Zachary Walters and Brent E. Blue and Warren Garbett and Marilyn Schneider and R. Stephen Craxton and Emma M. Garcia and Patrick W. McKenty and Maria Gatu-Johnson and Kyle Caspersen and John I. Castor and Markus Däne and C. Leland Ellison and James Gaffney and Frank R. Graziani and John Klepeis and Natalie Kostinski and Andrea Kritcher and Brandon Lahmann and Amy E. Lazicki and Hai P. Le and Richard A. London and Brian Maddox and Michelle Marshall and Madison E. Martin and Burkhard Militzer and Abbas Nikroo and Joseph Nilsen and Tadashi Ogitsu and John Pask and Jesse E. Pino and Michael Rubery and Ronnie Shepherd and Philip A. Sterne and Damian C. Swift and Lin Yang and Shuai Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.15635},
year = {2021}
}