A new fully implicit finite-difference algorithm for simulation of nonlinear electron heat conduction in high-temperature plasmas including Bremsstrahlung emission

Summary form only given. Numerical solutions of the one-dimensional nonlinear electron heat conduction equation are presented in this paper. The most common way of energy transport in high-temperature plasmas is electron thermal conduction. The heat transfer mechanism in such plasmas is strongly nonlinear because of the dependence of the heat conduction coefficient on temperature. An efficient and accurate solution of the transport equation is still one of the computational challenges. The numerical solution of the nonlinear electron heat conduction equation, including Bremsstrahlung emission, is obtained by employing the second-order accurate Crank-Nicholson differencing scheme in combination with the Newton-Raphson method. Furthermore, the accuracy and conservation tests of this fully implicit algorithm are presented.