Updates to NIF ignition point design
ORAL
Abstract
The National Ignition Campaign (NIC) on the National Ignition Facility plans to use an indirectly driven spherical implosion to assemble and ignite a mass of DT fuel. The NIC is currently in the process of conducting a variety of experiments using surrogate targets, meant to define various aspects of the future ignition experiment. Also, cryogenic capsules containing a DT or hydrodynamically equivalent tritium-rich fuel layer are being fielded. These integrate the laser and target adjustments made during the tuning experiments and provide the $||$R and T distributions that result. In an activity ongoing with these experiments, the point design for ignition is being updated and modified as appropriate. This presentation will describe how the experiments are being integrated into updates to several aspects of the point design: (i) the target configuration; (ii) the laser pulse pulse shape; (iii) our modeling of the implosion; and (iv) its projected performance.
*This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
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