Stabilized Liner Compressor Update

The Stabilized Liner Compressor (SLC), described at the EAPPC-BEAMS-Megagauss conference [1], grew out of the original Linus program at the Naval Research Laboratory in the 1970s [2]. The idea then, as now, was to create a stable liner to compress magnetic fields or magnetized plasmas to high energy densities up to thermonuclear fusion conditions. Other liner compression schemes have been unsuccessful because of instabilities - in particular the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. In the case of Linus and SLC, stability is provided by rotation of the liner, which is formed from liquid metal. The current project has been supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) under the ALPHA program, whose goal is to further technologies enabling lower-cost fusion approaches [3]. A critical tool for understanding and designing compression systems is MACH2, a 2 1/2-D ALE magnetohydrodynamics simulation code [4]. In this paper, we present the results of simulations leading to a point design for SLC demonstration, as well as an engineering description of the point design. We also describe technical issues encountered.