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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.
“G. A.”21 pages
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR QFFHil.ltk W!ilE 8HLZ.S generation rate is achieved. The net accelerating voltage must be kept within the order of 1 kV to ensure that the resultant exhaust velocity is in the range of 30,000 m/s (Isp < 3000 seconds). The mission for a communications satellite is optimized with a specific impulse in this range. A higher specific impulse would reduce propellant requirements, but the power requirements and the mass associated with power source components would increase correspondingly. Xenon is bled into the chamber through holes at appropriate locations around the wall of the vessel. Figure 3.3. Illustration of the IEC Jet Thruster Experiment Showing Central Grid and Two Jet Grids, Opposite to Each Other With On-Off Action Table 3.1 lists the estimated performance parameters for an IEC electrostatic ion thruster based on experimental data available to date plus extrapolation of other ion thruster data. The IEC device will have higher densities and temperatures in the central core plasma than a conventional thruster, but the increased losses due to Bremsstrahlung radiation are still negligible when compared to the other power losses. Thermal radiation losses should be comparable to that in conventional thrusters. The energy expenditure per ion for conventional ion thrusters and is~ 300 eV per ion. The energy expenditure per ion for the IEC device has not been established experimentally, but was estimated in Table 3.1 from simulation studies. 27 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'F811. 8FFll!l,'\I! l!l!il! 8111!¥
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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.