Josué Quiñonez | Dr. Farhat Beg

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS MODELING OF A SUPERSONIC GAS

INJECTOR FOR PULSED POWER TARGET

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 DYNAMICSMach Number• The ratio of the velocity

of an object over the speed of sound

State Variables:• Pressure, Temperature,

DensityFlow Conditions:• Isentropic Flow• Steady State

CREO 3D MODELING• Areas of Inlet, Throat, &

Nozzle Exit

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICSSelecting a Program• ANSYS Fluent, Comsol & Openfoam

Comsol• Issues converging at high Mach number flows as

well as multi-phase flowsOpenfoam• 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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSMentors:• Farhat Beg, Ph.D.• Julio Valenzuela, Ph.D.• Igor Krasheninnikov, B.S.

STARS Program:• Elisa Maldonado, Ph.D.• Joshua Francois, B.S.

THANK YOU