COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

MODELING OF A SUPERSONIC GAS

INJECTOR FOR PULSED POWER TARGET
Josu Quionez

Dr. Farhat Beg

The University of California, San Diego

MOTIVATION

Energy sources today such as coal and oil are

becoming more of an issue to use
Alternative Energy Sources

NUCLEAR FUSION
A nuclear reaction, in which lighter nuclei are
combined together to form heavier product nuclei
with the release of an enormous amount of energy

Z-PINCH
An injection of gas into the current generator electrodes
We use 1 MA current generator that compresses the plasma in a 100 ns

OBJECTIVE
To design a gas injector in order to funnel a
uniform gas flow to be compressed and heated by
an intense current pulse and produce fusion
reactions

GAS DYNAMICS
Mach Number
The ratio of the velocity
of an object over the
speed of sound
State Variables:
Pressure, Temperature,
Density
Flow Conditions:
Isentropic Flow
Steady State

CREO 3D MODELING
Areas of Inlet, Throat, &
Nozzle Exit

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Selecting a Program
ANSYS Fluent, Comsol & Openfoam
Comsol
Issues converging at high Mach number flows as
well as multi-phase flows
Openfoam
Is a free open source program but it lacks a
graphic user interface
Difficult to learn in a time constrained project

ANSYS FLUENT SIMULATION PROCEDURE

ANSYS FLUENT GEOMETRY

ANSYS FLUENT MESH

ANSYS FLUENT SETUP

RESULTS

FUTURE WORK
Implementing engineering
principles in the design we
hope to soon begin the
manufacturing process
It is believed that with
enough current and
understanding of the
phenomena we might
achieve break-even in the
short term and a fusion
power plant in the future

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Mentors:
Farhat Beg, Ph.D.
Julio Valenzuela, Ph.D.
Igor Krasheninnikov, B.S.
STARS Program:
Elisa Maldonado, Ph.D.
Joshua Francois, B.S.

THANK YOU