Engineering the National Ignition Facility

The engineering team of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) has developed a highly optimized hardware design that satisfies stringent cost, performan ce and schedule requirements. After a 3-year effort, the design will culmin ate at the end of FY98 with the completion of major Title II design reviews . Every element of the facility from optic configuration, facility layout a nd hardware specifications to material selection, fabrication techniques an d part tolerancing has been examined to assure the minimum cost per joule o f laser energy delivered on target. In this paper, the design of the major subsystems will be discussed from the perspective of this optimization emph asis. Focus will be placed on the special equipment hardware which includes laser, beam transport, opto-mechanical., system control and target area sy stems. Some of the unique features in each of these areas will be discussed to highlight how significant cost savings have been achieved while maintai ning reasonable and acceptable performance risk. Key to the success has als o been a vigorous development program that commenced nearly 4 years ago and has been highly responsive to the specific needs of the NIF project. Suppo rting analyses and prototyping work that evolved from these parallel activi ties will also be discussed.