The National Ignition Campaign, tasked with designing and fielding targets for fusion ignition experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), has carried forward three complementary target designs for the past several years: a beryllium ablator design, a plastic ablator design, and a high-density carbon or synthetic diamond design. This paper describes current simulations and design optimization to develop the plastic ablator capsule design as a candidate for the first ignition attempt on NIF. The trade-offs in capsule scale and laser energy that must be made to achieve a comparable ignition probability to that with beryllium are emphasized. Large numbers of 1-D simulations, meant to assess the statistical behavior of the target design, as well as 2-D simulations to assess the target's susceptibility to Rayleigh-Taylor growth are presented.

An improved chemical kinetic model for the toluene oxidation based on experimental data obtained in a premixed laminar low-pressure flame with vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) photoionization and molecular beam mass spectrometry (MBMS) techniques has been proposed. The present mechanism consists of 273 species up to chrysene and 1740 reactions. The rate constants of reactions of toluene, decomposition, reaction with oxygen, ipso-additions and metatheses with abstraction of phenylic H-atom are updated; new pathways of C{sub 4} + C{sub 2} species giving benzene and fulvene are added. Based on the experimental observations, combustion intermediates such as fulvenallene, naphtol, methylnaphthalene, acenaphthylene, 2-ethynylnaphthalene, phenanthrene, anthracene, 1-methylphenanthrene, pyrene and chrysene are involved in the present mechanism. The final toluene model leads to an overall satisfactory agreement between the experimentally observed and predicted mole fraction profiles for the major products and most combustion intermediates. The toluene depletion is governed by metathese giving benzyl radicals, ipso-addition forming benzene and metatheses leading to C{sub 6}H{sub 4}CH{sub 3} radicals. A sensitivity analysis indicates that the unimolecular decomposition via the cleavage of a C-H bond has a strong inhibiting effect, while decomposition via C-C bond breaking, ipso-addition of H-atom to toluene, decomposition of benzyl radicals and reactions related to C{sub 6}H{sub …