Fusion - Interactive
About the project: For my final year project I investigated direct-drive inertial confinement fusion reactions with computer simulations. Inertial confinement fusion is a promising method for producing plentiful clean energy but currently faces several barriers including efficiency constraints. The goal of the project was to improve the efficiency of the reactions, thus producing more energy (measured as 'gain'). Gain can be influenced by adjusting a multitude of variables and the optimum can be found by searching a multi-dimensional variable space. The figure shows how gain varies with two of these variables and is fully interactive.
Abstract: For over 70 years fusion power has promised to revolutionise how we produce energy. If made commercially viable, it could be a plentiful source of green energy, thus helping mitigate the current climate crisis. One promising approach to achieving fusion power is Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF). This paper uses a 1D hydrodynamics simulation to explore the possibility of varying the picket timings in a direct drive ICF experiment to maximise energy output. An optimised laser profile is produced which could be used by the OMEGA experiment to improve implosion performance. The effect of increasing the picket width is explored as well as the characteristics of a high-performing implosion. The possibility of expanding the range of free parameters is also covered along with the application of a Gaussian Process surrogate model to further maximise energy output. The maximum gain was found to be 53.
Download the final report: Inertial Confinement Fusion.pdf