Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

A computer model for systems analysis of heavy ion drivers has been developed and used to evaluate driver designs for inertial fusion energy (IFE). The present work examines a driver for a close-coupled target design that requires less total beam energy but also smaller beam spots sizes than previous target designs. Design parameters and a cost estimate for a 160 beam, 3.3 MJ driver using rubidium ions (A = 85) are reported, and the sensitivity of the results to variations in selected design parameters is given.