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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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.
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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.