Numerical validation of a volume heated mixed fuel concept

TL;DR

This paper investigates a novel mixed fuel inertial confinement fusion concept using ultra-short laser pulses and nano-structured accelerators, demonstrating through simulations that it can achieve high yields without cryogenic fuels.

Contribution

It introduces a new fast direct drive mixed fuel ICF concept utilizing nano-structured accelerators and validates its potential through numerical simulations.

Findings

Mixed fuel design can reach target yield >1 with external heating

Simulations validate a theoretical scaling model of reactive hydro flows

Potential to avoid cryogenic fuels in ICF

Abstract

While the underlying physics of the ICF approach to nuclear fusion is well understood and a technological implementation of the indirect drive variant of the ICF paradigm has recently been given at NIF commercially viable ICF concepts for energy production and beyond are still under investigation. In the present paper we propose core elements of a novel fast direct drive mixed fuel ICF concept that might be commercially viable. It makes use of ultra-short, ultra-intense laser pulses interacting with nano-structured accelerators embedded into the mixed fuel context. The embedded accelerator technology promises to be highly efficient and capable of fast fuel heating without fuel pre-compression but is not the focus of the paper. It is the predominant purpose of the mixed fuel concept to avoid cryogenic fuels since specific chemical compounds exist that are capable of chemically binding $\text{DT}$. To which extent mixed fuel concepts can work is investigated in the paper. Under the assumption that the proposed direct drive fast heating concept is capable of rapidly heating the fuel uniformly to sufficiently high temperatures it is found with the help of MULTI, an ICF community code, that a $\text{pBDT}$ mixed fuel design can reach a target yield $Q_T >1$ with $\text{MJ}$ level external isochoric heating. The simulations are used to validate a theoretical scaling model of the mixed fuel reactive hydro flows. The paper does not present a reactor point design.