[en] A compilation of the existing facilities in inertial confinement is given

[en] Inertial confinement (ICF) fusion research is directed towards demonstrating the feasibility of very rapidly heating and compressing small pellets of suitable fuel until conditions exist where thermonuclear fusion can occur and useful amounts of power can be produced. Major problems which have to be solved are the following: 1) pellet design based on driver-plasma coupling; 2) the technology of energy drivers; 3) feasibility of ICF reactor systems

[en] Of the United States' two major research and development programs pursuing the goal of fusion energy production, the magnetic confinement fusion energy (MFE) program was removed from security classification restrictions in 1958, whereas the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program remains classified in part, with concomitant barriers to information flow and scientific cooperation both internationally and intranationally. This report attempts to put the question of ICF classification in perspective, and to review and remark upon especially to an appeal by Ray Kidder for ICF declassification. 16 refs

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[en] LBL and LLNL propose to build, at LBL, the Induction Linac Systems Experiments (ILSE), the next logical step towards the eventual goal of a heavy-ion induction accelerator powerful enough to implode or ''drive'' inertial-confinement fusion targets. ILSE, although much smaller than a driver, will be the first experiment at full driver scale in several important parameters. Most notable among these are line charge density and beam cross section. Many other accelerator components and beam manipulations needed for an inertial fusion energy (IFE) driver will be tested. The ILSE accelerator and research program will permit experimental study of those beam manipulations required of an induction linac inertial fusion driver which have not been tested sufficiently in previous experiments, and will provide a step toward driver technology

[en] Nuclear fusion, as one of the main energy source for the 21 century, is still in the stage of extensive scientific research which is aimed toward achieving thermonuclear ignition. In the present talk I will shortly review the status of the main approaches to achieve net thermonuclear fusion energy and will mainly describe the achievements and open questions of the Inertial Confinement Fusion method, where intense lasers are used to compress and heat a small pellet of DT up to ignition and burn conditions. It is well recognized that the main obstacle to achieve ignition in the ICF approach is the development of hydrodynamic instabilities on both sides of the compressed shell that may cause shell breakup and ignition failure. In the present work, we review our recent theoretical, numerical and experimental work that contribute to a better understanding the evolution of instabilities at the various stages of the pellet implosion. The perturbations, from which the instabilities grow, are seeded by both surface roughness and laser intensity non-uniformity. In order to study the laser imprint process we have carried out numerical simulations and modeling in order to get the equivalent mass perturbation in the target as a function of perturbation wavelength, laser intensity and pulse shape and laser smoothing technique. Using the initial mass perturbation spectrum we estimating what is the required initial perturbation amplitude (from both surface roughness and laser imprint) that will not cause shell breakup. Until recently, most of the simulations and models developed to describe the evolution of the instability were done in two-dimensions(2D). We have recently performed full numerical simulations and extended our models to describe the evolution of three-dimensional(3D) perturbations. It was found that there are differences between the evolution of the instability in 2D and 30, which is caused by the differences in the kinematic drag force that is decelerating the instability evolution in its nonlinear stage. The differences between the 2D and the 3D evolution were confirmed by shock-tube experiments. Finally, we have study the effects of these perturbation on the ignition conditions, using new self-similar solutions for perturbed burn wave propagation. The margin of a target to a given initial perturbation and the required increase in the implosion velocity and laser energy necessary to achieve ignition is obtained for various spectrum of perturbation wave numbers and amplitudes

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