Risk Management Plan for the National Ignition Facility

摘要

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a U.S. Department of Energy inertial confinement laser fustion facility, currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). NIF is a critical tool for the Department of Energy (DOE) science-based Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program. In addition, it represents a major step towards realizing inertial confinement fusion as a source of energy. The NIF will focus 192 laser beams onto spherical targets containing a mixture of deuterium and tritium, causing them to implode. This will create the high temperatures and pressures necessary for these targets to undergo fusion. The plan is for NIF to achieve ignition (i.e., self-heating of the fuel) and energy gain (i.e., more fusion energy produced than laser energy deposited) in the laboratory for the first time.