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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p. 5 …Photo of Center Spot Formation ......................................................... 12 Figure 2.1. The "Historic" Early IEC Ion Injection Experiment…
p. 9 …The ideal, however, is the elimination of the grid altogether which can be done via formation…
p. 12 …This result was quite negative for electron formation of potential wells, but left the route possibly…
p. 14 …most critical factors which inhibit deep well formation are inadequate spherical focusing and charge neutralization. The…
p. 18 …The ion formation is done in the high pressure gun discharge region outside of the chamber…
p. 19 …Photo of Center Spot Formation. The main beam observed is a direct path along the injector…
p. 20 …Klevans, "Theory of Potential-Well Formation in an Electrostatic Confinement Device", J. of Appl. Phys., Vol…
p. 22 …As shown in the paper, he found structure for both consistent with well formation. One possible…
p. 30 …However, to date, formation of the jet has only been studied under steady-state operation. 23…
p. 31 …The result is the formation of the intense space charge neutralized ion beam (or "plasma jet…
p. 32 …This type of ion formation in the IEC has been studied extensively by workers at Nambe…
p. 35 …The approach being pursued at UIUC is the formation of deep potential wells with angular ion…
p. 45 …considered well formation with emphasis on angular momentum effects (Reference 4.4). Earlier studies had assumed…
p. 48 …is very encouraging for formation of deep wells in IEC devices designed for reactors using beam…
p. 49 …Krylov algorithm that does not require actual formation and storage of the Jacobian matrix to minimize…
p. 69 …While very demanding, plasma simulations show that carefully controlled injection can provide the potential well formation…
p. 70 …This eliminates the need for a grid by formation of a deep potential well (ion trap…

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temperatures are suppressed. These issues will be discussed further in Section IV on
theory and Section VI on a proposed breakeven experiment.
REFERENCES
1.1 W. Elmore, J. Tuck, and K. Watson, "On the Inertial-Electrostatic Confinement of
a Plasma", Phys. Fluids, vol. 2, No. 3, ( 1959) pp. 239-246.
1.2 R.L. Hirsch, "Inertial-electrostatic confinement of ionized fusion gases," J. of Appl.
Phys., vol. 38, (1967) pp. 4522-4534.
1.3 W. M. Black and E. H. Klevans, "Theory of Potential-Well Formation in an
Electrostatic Confinement Device", J. of Appl. Phys., Vol. 45, No. 6 (1974) pp. 2502-
2511.
1.4 T. A. Thorson, R. D. Durst, R. J. Fonck, and L. P. Wainwright, "Convergence
Electrostatic Potential, and Density Measurements in a Spherical Convergent Ion
Focus", Phys. Plasmas, vol. 4, no. 1, (1997) pp. 4-5.
1.5 G.H. Miley, et al., "Inertial-electrostatic confinement neutron proton source,"
Third International Conference on Dense 2-pinches, AIP Conference Proceedings 299,
(1993) pp. 675-689.
1.6 R.W. Bussard, "Some Physics Considerations of Magnetic Inertial-Electrostatic
Confinement: A New Concept for Spherical Converging-Flow Fusion", Fusion
Technology, vol. 19, no. 2, (1991) pp. 273-293.
1.7 N. A. Krall, "The Polywell™: A Spherically Convergent Ion Focus Concept", Fusion
Technology, vol. 22, no!, (1992) pp. 42-49.
1.8 S. K. Wong and N. A. Krall, "A Nonlocal Theory of Counterstreaming Ion
Instability", Phys. Fluids B, vol. 5, no.6, (1993) pp. 1706-1714.
1.9 D. C. Barnes, M. M. Schauer, K. R. Umstadter, L. Chacon, and G. H. Miley,
"Electron equilibrium and confinement in a modified Penning trap and its application
to Penning fusion", Phys. Plasmas, vol. 7, no. 5, May (2000).
1.10 R. A. Nebel, D. C. Barnes, Fusion Technology 38, 28 (1998).
1.11 D. C. Barnes, R. A. Nebel, "Stable, thermal equilibrium, large-amplitude,
spherical plasma oscillations in electrostatic confinement devices", Physics of
Plasmas 5, 2498 (1998).
1.12 J. Park, R. A. Nebel, S. Stange, S. K. Murali, "Periodically oscillating plasma
sphere", Physics of Plasmas 12, (2005) 056315.
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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.