Kevin Schillo

Experiment to Form and Characterize a Section of a Spherically Imploding Plasma Liner

We describe an experiment to form and characterize a section of a spherically imploding plasma liner by merging six supersonic plasma jets that are launched by newly designed contoured-gap coaxial plasma guns. This experiment is a prelude to forming a fully spherical imploding plasma liner using many dozens of plasma guns, as a standoff driver for plasma-jet-driven magnetoinertial fusion. The objectives of the six-jet experiments are to assess the evolution and scalings of liner Mach number and uniformity, which are important metrics for spherically imploding plasma liners to compress magnetized target plasmas to fusion conditions. This paper describes the design of the coaxial plasma guns, experimental characterization of the plasma jets, six-jet experimental setup and diagnostics, initial diagnostic data from three- and six-jet experiments, and the high-level objectives of associated numerical modeling.

Simulation of Hemispherical Nozzles for Pulsed Plasma Propulsion Applications

Offering both high thrust and high specific impulse, pulsed nuclear propulsion systems offer to open up the solar system in ways that few other propulsion technologies can. While pulsed fission propulsion is possible with existing technology, political and social opposition are likely to prevent it from being ever utilized. Pulsed fusion propulsion, by contrast, does not face such intense opposition because many concepts do not rely on conventional nuclear explosives. One such concept is Z-pinch fusion, and is being researched at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Deriving propulsive thrust from this form of fusion is of great interest, and has been the subject of simulations conducted with smoothed particle hydrodynamics. A solidstate hemispherical nozzle is investigated as the mechanism to derive thrust from a cylindrical gas column. Geometric nozzle permutations were investigated to determine what general shape of the propellant cylinder would provide the nozzle with higher performance.