Thermal conduction by electrons in solid density DT fuel

In the interaction of very short laser pulses (of the order of picoseconds or less) with fusible target material, the hydrodynamic energy transports by hot electrons and therefore in these cases the electron heat conduction is dominant. Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) is an approach to fusion that relies on the inertia of the fuel mass to provide confinement. The aim of ICF is to show that the thermal conductivity is strongly dependent on temperature and the equation of heat conduction is a nonlinear equation. In this article, the one-dimensional (1-D) nonlinear electron heat conduction equation is solved with a self-similar method (SSM). This solution has been used to estimate the electron temperature profiles at different instants of time t . Results indicate that the effect of thermal conduction by electrons for the arbitrary energy input 15 2 7.5 10 − E = × ergcm in will have penetrated a distance 2 / 9 x 60.0851 t f » into the solid density deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel.

Keywords:

heat transfer , thermal conduction , self- similar method (SSM) , Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) , thermonuclear reaction