Design and analysis of the Z-pinch loads on the PTS facility

Abstract

In this paper, a method for designing and optimizing the wire-array loads used on the PTS facility is presented. Both ZP-0D program of a shell model and MARED-1D code of a MHD model are used for the simulation. By comparing results from each model, the characteristics of the Z-pinch implosion plasma driven by the PTS facility are investigated, and the load parameters are optimized. It is found that, a 15nH concentrator inductance is efficient for PTS facility to work at load currents up to 10MA. The optimized tungsten wire-array load is able to produce x-ray radiation at peak power up to 100TW and a best efficiency of conversion from the wall-plug of about 10%. By further investigation and comparison with experiment datum, it is supposed that PTS facility will has similar x-ray radiation productivity with Saturn facility operating at a long-pulse mode.