Mikhail Basko: DEIRA - a 1D-3T code for simulating ICF targets

DEIRA: a 1D-3T hydrodynamics code for simulating ICF targets

The DEIRA code has been developed at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP, Moscow) in the period of 1988-2006 as part of an effort to explore the feasibility of the controlled thermonuclear fusion, based on the principle of inertial confinement (ICF) and using the beams of heavy ions as a driver. For a number of years, the 1D-3T Lagrangian DEIRA code served as a principal tool for investigating ICF targets, driven by heavy ion beams.

The physics model, implemented in the DEIRA code, was gradually built up and perfected in the years 1980-2006. It is based on the equations of 1D hydrodynamics, where the flow geometry can be either plane-parallel, or cylindrical, or spherical. It is assumed that a simulated target can be irradiated by ion beams only strictly symmetrically within the prescribed geometry, and that the ions propagate along the target radii. An arbitrary mixture of the deuterium, tritium, helium-3, hydrogen, and boron-11 isotopes can be used as a thermonuclear fuel. In particular, the implemented model includes

the equations of one-dimensional (1D) single-fluid two-temperature (2T) dissipative magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) with the electron and ion heat conduction and the ion physical viscosity;
the diffusion equation for the axial component of the magnetic field; the MHD option is restricted to the plane-parallel and cylindrical geometries only, and only the magnetic field component perpendicular to the radial direction (i.e. along the cylinder axis in the cylindrical case) is treated;
the diffusion equation for the energy density of radiation in the approximation of one frequency group (the approximation of a separate radiation temperature);
three diffusion equations for the energy densities of the three species of fast charged fusion products, namely, the 3.5-MeV alpha particles, the 3-MeV protons, and the 14.7-MeV protons;
four nuclear burn equations for the relative abundances of the deuterium, tritium, He3, and B11 isotopes;
the stopping equation for the propagation of fast ions in the approximation of straight-line trajectories.

For the equation of state (EOS), several simple analytic models have been preprogrammed. To simulate realistic materials, the main tabular option of EOS can be used: the required tables of the 2T EOS are generated by a separate code package TABIN3 (supplied together with the DEIRA code), where an average-atom model from [M.M.Basko, Sov. High Temper. (Teplofiz. Vysok. Temper.), 23 (1985) 388-396; preprint ITEP-57 (1982)] is implemented. For all the transport and relaxation coefficients, thermonuclear burn rates, viscosity coefficients, etc., analytic models are available, which describe with a reasonable accuracy the properties of dense and/or hot magnetized plasmas. A comprehensive description of the DEIRA physics model and of the numerical scheme is given in the report that can be downloaded from here .

Originally, the DEIRA code was written in the FORTRAN-77 language and aimed at being run on relatively low-power computers (like the BESM-6 produced in the USSR) with a minuscule RAM of about 200 kbytes; hence its rather primitive architecture. Any work on the DEIRA code has been stopped in 2006; its latest FORTRAN-77 version from that year can be downloaded as the deira4.zip file. The work on this project has been resumed in 2018 under a new name DELIRA on the more powerful platform of FORTRAN-90, with the intention to preserve the full legacy of the DEIRA model in the new multi-purpose 1D Lagrangian DELIRA code .

The author hereby gives general permission to copy and distribute this document together with the attached PDF file and the source FORTRAN code in any medium, provided that all copies contain, in a manner appropriate for the medium, an acknowledgement of authorship and the URL of the original document, i.e. http://www.basko.net/mm/DEIRA/

Originally composed: 2007.02.04
Last update: 2020.02.19