Atomic Scale Mixing for Inertial Confinement Fusion Associated Hydro Instabilities

Abstract

Hydro instabilities have been identified as a potential cause of performance degradation in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. We study instabilities associated with a single Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) interface in a circular geometry, idealized from an ICF geometry. In an ICF application, atomic level mix, as an input to nuclear burn, is an important, but difficult to compute, variable. We find numerical convergence for this important quantity, in a purely hydro study, with only a mild dependence on the Reynolds number of the flow, in the high Reynolds number limit. We also find that mixing properties show a strong sensitivity to turbulent transport parameters; this sensitivity translates into an algorithmic dependence and a nonuniqueness of solutions for nominally converged solutions. It is thus a complication to any verification and validation program. To resolve the nonuniqueness of the solution, we propose a validation program with an extrapolation component, linking turbulent transport quantities in experimental regimes to mildly perturbed turbulent transport values in ICF Reynolds number regimes. In view of the observed solution nonuniqueness, the validation program and its justification from the results presented here, has a fundamental significance.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 26, 2013
Accession Number
ADA606251

Entities

People

  • D. H. Sharp
  • Halston Lim
  • J. Glimm
  • Jeremy Melvin
  • P. Rao
  • R. Kaufman
  • Yang Yu

Organizations

  • State University of New York

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Algorithms
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Coefficients
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computational Science
  • Differential Equations
  • Diffusion
  • Energy
  • Equations
  • Euler Equations
  • High Energy
  • Mixing
  • Partial Differential Equations
  • Reynolds Number
  • Statistics
  • Turbulent Mixing

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Dynamics.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.