Defense Intelligence Reference Document Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion

Defense Intelligence Agency · 72 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Defense Intelligence Agency reference document, dated 10 March 2010, covers inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion. It was produced in FY 2009 under the DIA's Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program. The report focuses on work at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and reviews IEC basics, experiments, theory and applications such as neutron sources, explosives detection and space propulsion. It concludes by proposing a breakeven experiment for p-11B fusion that uses a hydrogen plasma simulation.

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“Works”29 pages

p. 7 …Emphasis is placed on work in these areas at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, although…
p. 8 …of how inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion works. Gas ~ccd I in~ Spherical Vacuum . Chamber !!1…
p. 10 …While Hirsh worked with Farnsworth to demonstrate early experimental success with IEC experiments (Reference 1.2…
p. 11 …Such work was soon taken up in several other laboratories, including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL…
p. 12 …electron) injected traps (as does the present author's work). This selection was largely driven by…
p. 15 …This work and others on the small gridded systems at that time showed several important problems…
p. 17 …Recent work has shown that by properly programming the distribution function of the injected electrons it…
p. 18 …Results indicate that although the formalism works well during the early phases of compression, when the…
p. 21 …Hirsch Working With Philo Farnsworth I' I'· 0 ,,, 10•u w "',. ~ 40~ CRONS D- -,C •~7…
p. 22 …This worked well, but the design was eventually discarded to move to RF guns with much…
p. 23 …This work substituted a metallic hybrid getter for the external pumping on the IEC chamber. With…
p. 24 …Another important example of the use of a compact IEC neutron source is the work at…
p. 25 …2.7) The IEC developed for this work used a magnetron ion generation technique to improve…
p. 26 …Still the design worked reasonably well for the initial mine detection experiments. Unfortunately, the project was…
p. 27 …as shown by the hybrid magnetron source work in Japan. Another point noted is the advantage…
p. 29 …As already noted, the basic physics of this version was originally studied in pioneering work by…
p. 30 …Relation to Other Prior Thrusters NASA and other laboratories have worked toward developing advanced Hall Thrusters…
p. 31 …Indeed, the thruster concept arose from work on a fusion based IEC (Reference 3.5). To…
p. 32 …Khachan's work. It too looks very promising. 25 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,u;oAt OFFIGIPk IP&'i OIIU{
p. 35 …at the UIUC and several other laboratories working on IECs. The issue then is how to…
p. 39 …In follow-on work, they simplified the modeling of charge exchange with an analytical approach to…
p. 40 …Satsangi, "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Experiments at Low Working Pressure," Prepared under U.S. Army contract DAAK…
p. 42 …In Chacon's work, a bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck (BAFP) model was employed to obtain steady…
p. 45 …Before discussing this work, some definitions for the potential well structure will be reviewed. POTENTIAL WELL…
p. 48 …However, much more work needs to be done along these lines to fully identify the optimal…
p. 52 …As pointed out by Khachan his work noted D2+ becomes more significant in lower voltages). In…
p. 53 …Nevins, Can inertial electrostatic confinement work beyond the ion-ion collisional time scale?" Phys. Plasmas, Vol…
p. 70 …Chacon's work, thermalized ions build up and additional quasi- Maxwellian distriution in the trap). Still…
p. 71 …To accomplish this result quickly on a modest budget, we need to simplify the work by…

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the injected electrons so space charge neutralization can be achieved. This formalism is
then included as a boundary condition in a gridless particle code. Results indicate that
although the formalism works well during the early phases of compression, when the
compression gets large the solution bifurcates and becomes unphysical. Subsequent
experiments on POPS at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) were
encouraging, but have not been continued at a high level of effort due to key staff
leaving for EMC2 . Thus, the practicality of this concept remains an open question which
deserves more research.
Miley's "Ion Injected" Device
The key to developing a IEC power device is to use external ion "guns" to form and
inject ions into the spherical IEC chamber. This eliminates the need for a grid and
differential pumping between the gun and chamber allows the high vacuum needed in
the chamber. (Ion injection by external guns was originally used by Hirsch as already
noted. Also, more recently other labs, e.g. the University of Wisconsin and University of
Kyoto/Tokyo Institute of Technology, have started gun injection work. Some of that is
described later in this report). The ion formation is done in the high pressure gun
discharge region outside of the chamber. Miley at UIUC (see Sections IV and VI) has
been studying such a system, both theoretically and experimentally. The theoretical
studies confirm that such an IEC plasma can exist stably and has sufficient confinement
time for aneutronic fusion. This assumes, however, very precise control is maintained
over the energy and angular momentum of injected ions and a balanced supply of
electrons is provided. A radio-frequency (RF) ion injector (or "gun") capable of such
operation has already been developed. A sketch of this design is shown in Figure 1.5.
magnetic focusing lens
stainless steel flange!
coaxial copper resonator: hollow cylindrical
ceramic (insulator)
negative potential
Qion~
positive wall,
partofvacuumchamber-=-
1
j
helical antenna ! glass tube
RF generator
bwer plasma stream: floating
Figure 1.5. Schematic of the UIUC RF Gun Injector for IEC Experiments
11
upper plasma stream: floating
D2 gas feed
j
magnetic differential coils
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 72 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.