Documents / Report
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.
“BEAMS”43 pages
UNCLASSIFIED//FIHl 8FFHil.t.k Wfili 8Hklf 2.7 T. Takamatsu, T. Kyunai, S. Ogawa, K. Masuda, H. Toku, and K. Yoshikawa, "A Magnetron Discharge Ion Source for an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Device" 7th U.S.-Japan IEC Workshop , Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM, March 14-16, (2005). 2.8 G. R. Piefer, J. F. Santarius, R. P. Ashley, G.L. Kulcinski "Progress in the Development of a 3 He Ion Source for IEC Fusion", 7th U.S.-Japan IEC Workshop, Los Alamos National Laboratory,, NM, March 14-16, (2005). Section III. Other Geometries A unique feature of the IEC is the ability to vary its geometry to adapt to a number of important near term and future applications. Here we consider cylindrical IEC geometries, the IEC Jet extraction geometry, dipole assisted, and magnetically-coupled IEC unit which add flexibility for use in some power applications. Other important configurations, which are quasi-spherical, include the magnetic assisted HEPS (Polywell) configuration, the Penning trap IEC, and the POPS oscillating IEC. These concepts are discussed briefly elsewhere in this report so will not be included here. CYLINDRICAL IECS The prime alternate geometry studied for IECs is cylindrical. While originally developed at the UIUC, the configuration has spread to other labs including the University of Wisconsin, Kyoto University, and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The objective is to obtain a dense core region extending along the axis of the cylinder. This is especially important for neutron sources since it offers a very long source that can be used for broad area coverage of large objects such as container boxes. Other conventional sources would require multiple "ganged" sources to do the same. A downside however, is the high power input required for such configurations. Thus the advantage of source length must be weighed against the alternative of moving a smaller point source over the surface of interest. It is not clear that the cylinder is useful for scaling to a power reactor. It can be viewed as a 2-D version of the spherical unit. As such, the beam convergence (compression) is limited to lower values, hence lower core densities (an important effect for beam-beam fusion desired for power reactors, but less so for beam-background reactions used in most current neutron sources). Two types of cylindrical sources (References 3.1-3.5), shown schematically in Figure 3.1, have been studied - a gridded type which is essentially the spherical unit converted into a cylinder, and a quite different hollow cathode design. The gridded design was a natural variation of the original Farnsworth device and was first studied experimentally in the 1970s by T. Dolan at the UIUC who used laser diagnostics with a noble gas discharge to study density-temperature and species profiles. The hollow cathode design was later proposed by G. Miley as an attempt to retain the long axial reaction region but do away with grids. 21 UNCLASSIFIED//r;Oll oi;i;1,;;1•k llili O•lk¥
Not linked to a story yet.
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.