Microphysics of shock-grain interaction for inertial confinement fusion ablators in a fluid approach.

Ablator materials used for inertial confinement fusion, such as high-density carbon (HDC) and beryllium, have grain structure which may lead to small-scale density nonuniformity and the generation of perturbations when the materials are shocked and compressed. Here, we use a combination of a linear theory of shock interaction with density nonuniformity [Velikovich et al., Phys.

Turbulence generation by shock interaction with a highly nonuniform medium.

An initially planar shock wave propagating into a medium of nonuniform density will be perturbed, leading to the generation of postshock velocity perturbations. Using numerical simulations we study this phenomenon in the case of highly nonuniform density (order-unity normalized variance, σ_{ρ}/ρ[over ¯]∼1) and strong shocks (shock Mach numbers M[over ¯]_{s}≳10). This leads to a highly disrupted shock and a turbulent postshock flow.

Hydrodynamic-dissipation relation for characterizing flow stagnation.

Hydrodynamic stagnation converts flow energy into internal energy. Here we develop a technique to directly analyze this hydrodynamic-dissipation process, which also yields a lengthscale associated with the conversion of flow energy to internal energy. We demonstrate the usefulness of this analysis for finding and comparing the hydrodynamic-stagnation dynamics of implosions theoretically, and in a test application to Z-pinch implosion data.