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At least 847 records · Page 47

Benchmarking 3D-MHD simulations of electrothermal instability growth by studying z-pinches with engineered defects

The electrothermal instability (ETI) is driven by Joule heating and arises from the dependence of resistivity on temperature. ETI may drive azimuthally correlated surface density variations which seed magneto Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) instability growth. Liner implosion studies suggest that dielectric surface coatings reduce the amplitude of ETI driven perturbations. Furthermore, previous fundamental physics studies suggest that non-metallic inclusions within the metal can seed ETI growth. In this project, we aimed to (1) determine how dielectric coatings modify ETI growth by varying the coating thickness and the surface structure of the underlying metal, and (2) study overheating from engineered defects—designed lattices of micron-scale pits. Engineered pits divert current density and drive local overheating in a way that can be compared with 3DMHD simulations. All experiments were executed on the Sandia Mykonos Facility. Facility and diagnostic investments enabled high quality data to be gathered in support of project deliverables.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Implementation and Results of Extended-MHD Post-processing of xRAGE Simulations

Magnetic fields are known to affect the evolution of conducting fluids via the J× B force, where J is the current density and B is the magnetic field. Typically, J× B in high energy density plasmas (HEDP) systems is considered small compared to the plasma pressure gradients. However, many experiments lie in a part of the parameter space where the plasma is indirectly affected via magnetization of the heat flux and charged particle transport. This is true even for initially unmagnetized plasmas, since misaligned density and temperature gradients can self-generate the so-called Biermann magnetic fields.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Composing preconditioners for multiphysics PDE systems with applications to Generalized MHD

New patch smoothers or relaxation techniques are developed for solving linear matrix equations coming from systems of discretized partial differential equations (PDEs). One key linear solver challenge for many PDE systems arises when the resulting discretization matrix has a near null space that has a large dimension, which can occur in generalized magnetohydrodynamic (GMHD) systems. Patch-based relaxation is highly effective for problems when the null space can be spanned by a basis of locally supported vectors. The patch-based relaxation methods that we develop can be used either within an algebraic multigrid (AMG) hierarchy or as stand-alone preconditioners. These patch-based relaxation techniques are a form of well-known overlapping Schwarz methods where the computational domain is covered with a series of overlapping sub-domains (or patches). Patch relaxation then corresponds to solving a set of independent linear systems associated with each patch. In the context of GMHD, we also reformulate the underlying discrete representation used to generate a suitable set of matrix equations. In general, deriving a discretization that accurately approximates the curl operator and the Hall term while also producing linear systems with physically meaningful near null space properties can be challenging. Unfortunately, many natural discretization choices lead to a near null space that includes non-physical oscillatory modes and where it is not possible to span the near null space with a minimal set of locally supported basis vectors. Further discretization research is needed to understand the resulting trade-offs between accuracy, stability, and ease in solving the associated linear systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗