JOINT MAE-CER SEMINAR

Staged Z-pinched

Hafiz Rahman, Magneto-Inertial Fusion Technology Inc. (MIFTI)
November 15, 2017, 11:00am - 12:00pm, EBU-II 479

ABSTRACT:

The Staged Z-pinch (SZP) is a magneto-inertial fusion concept in which a high-atomic-number (‘high-Z’) cylindrical liner compresses onto a low-atomic-number target (‘low-Z’). In this seminar, the physical basis for a magneto-inertial compression is discussed. Initially, a high-Z liner implodes due to the azimuthal self-magnetic field from an applied axial current. As the liner implosion becomes super-Alfvénic, magnetosonic waves form, transporting current and magnetic field through the liner toward the interface with the low-Z target. These waves cannot propagate through the highly-conductive target, stagnating at the interface, where a stable shock front develops and preheats the target ahead of the inertial compression by the liner. At peak compression, the assembly is compressed by liner inertia, with azimuthal (and axial) flux compression producing an intense magnetic field near the target. Recent experimental campaigns using the Zebra pulsed-power generator (1 MA, ~ 100 ns) at the Nevada Terawatt Facility at University of Nevada, Reno, of Ar and Kr gas-puff on deuterium target, Staged Z-pinch implosions are discussed. In addition, results from magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of an unmagnetized, silver liner imploding onto a deuterium-tritium target, driven by a 200 TW generator, predicting fusion yield, YDT > 100 MJ, are presented.

BIO:

Dr. Rahman is the president and chief scientist of Magneto-Inertial Fusion Technology Inc. (MIFTI). In the past he was faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy University of California Irvine and Riverside. He has over four decades of experience in the field of fusion-energy and space physics research. His research spans on all three areas of experiment, theory and computational physics. His particular emphasis on research has been on: dense Z pinches for fusion energy, Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) laboratory simulation of space plasma structures, and propagation of neutralized plasma beams. Dr. Rahman previously directed the space simulation laboratory at Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) from 1986-2000.