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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found that there is an optimum voltage in terms of a maximum IEC cathode current.
Ions supplied by the magnetron ion source are essential to maintain the hybrid (glow
and magnetron) discharge under low gas pressure conditions. The reason for this
voltage limit is not clear. Unfortunately this effect limits the cathode voltage despite the
need for high voltage for neutron production near the peak energy of the fusion cross
section. Thus this issue deserves more study to optimize use of a hybrid magnetron
source IEC operation. Still the design worked reasonably well for the initial mine
detection experiments. Unfortunately, the project was terminated prematurely due to
financial constraints, so information on optimization possibility remains incomplete.
The design of the ion source also depends on the ion species being injected. Sources
described thus far have focused on deuterium or, in some cases on tritium. However,
workers at the University of Wisconsin (U. Wisc.) have had a great interest in 3He
reactions (both D- 3He and 3He-3 He), so have developed a gun specialized to 3He ion
production (Reference 2.8). To maximize the ion current, a Helicon source was selected
since Helicons are well known for production of very high density plasmas from which
high ion currents can be extracted. This source is illustrated in Figure 2.6 and discussed
in Reference 2.8. They state that this source has produced steady-state ion currents of
10 mA into IEC systems with background gas pressures as low as 200 μtorr.
Figure 2.6. 3 He Ion Source for Use in 3He- 3He Fusion Rate Studies at the U of Wisconsin
These developments are aimed at observation of the 3He-3 He reaction in an IEC device.
Scoping calculations of beam-background fusion rates predict that a 3 He- 3 He reaction
product spectrum should be distinctly observable in an IEC operating below 200 kV.
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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.