Simulation software reaches new HEIGHTS

Argonne’s proposed Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) will produce an unprecedented variety of beams of short-lived isotopes, many at intensities more than 100,000 times those currently available. It will also put lots of energy onto a very small spot — more than 100,000 watts through a 1 millimeter diameter circle.

To handle the materials challenges, RIA designers are using the software package that is the international standard for simulating materials behavior under intense energy exposure — an Argonne-created software system called HEIGHTS — to design the best beam target and cooling system.

"We designed HEIGHTS to simulate the physics of intense energy and power deposition on targets," said Ahmed Hassanein, manager of the Computational Physics and Hydrodynamics Section in the Energy Technology Division. HEIGHTS, for High Energy Interaction with General Heterogeneous Target Systems, simulates phenomena like shock and ignition physics, heat and radiation propagation through the atmosphere and photon transport through different media.

RIA’s ion beams will be used to study the origin of the elements and test current models of physics, but their intensity would destroy typical thin-film targets.

"HEIGHTS is being used to evaluate light- and heavy-ion beam interaction with targets to calculate the thermal response of different target systems cooled by liquid metals," Hassanein said.

HEIGHTS has been used extensively for modeling plasma-material interactions in laboratory devices and Tokamak fusion machines in Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States. The intense heat of plasma created in magnetic confinement fusion reactors — approximately 100 million degrees — challenges designers. HEIGHTS simulates the plasma’s interaction with reactor materials and the subsequent vapor cloud to determine what materials can withstand the plasma and photon radiation and how long they will last in a fusion reactor.

High-energy physicists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory apply HEIGHTS to model the targets for an international muon collider and neutrino factory. The software is used to model high-velocity liquid-metal jets in strong magnetic fields. HEIGHTS is also used to study the shock hydrodynamic effects from proton beam bombardment that produces pions that decay into muons.

Working with the University of Chicago Medical School, Argonne researchers are using HEIGHTS to study electric arcs, their propagation through the atmosphere and their interactions with human bodies. Doctors hope to learn how to improve patient treatment as well as equipment.

HEIGHTS is a comprehensive software package created at Argonne over the past decade. It runs on computers ranging from parallel processors to Cray supercomputers to engineering workstations. HEIGHTS combines the foremost numerical solution methods, including finite elements, Lagrangian, Eulerian, particle-in-cell (PIC), Monte Carlo and ray tracing techniques.

Depending on the problem’s complexity, run time ranges from one hour to months. HEIGHTS is continuously being updated and upgraded.
The HEIGHTS material evaluation software, developed by Ahmed Hassanein, simulates the physics of intense power and energy deposition on targets. It was used to simulate the bombardment of Argonne’s proposed Rare Isotope Accelerator’s target.

For more information please contact Evelyn Brown