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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.
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UNCLASSIFIED//509 QFFI~II k WE&i &•ltlf Table 3.1. Estimated Performance Parameters or the IEC Ion Thruster Parameter IEC Ion Thruster Propellant Xenon Molecular Weight ( amu) 131.3 Specific Impulse (s) 3000 Thrust (mN) 34 Jet Power (W) 500 Net accelerating Potential (V) 600 Beam Current (mA) 832 Power Loss to Grid (W) <50 Power Loss to Bresstrahlung < I Radiation (W) Power loss to Ionization of 200-250 Propellant (W) Input Power (W) 750-800 Thruster Efficiency (%) 62-68 In summary, the power efficiency of the IEC thruster appears to be competitive to existing ion thrusters. What are the advantages then? These were outlined earlier and include a more compact design, large heat rejection area, an exhaust jet closer to quasi-neutrality, reduced neutral propellant leakage, and reduced grid erosion. Thus, the mass of the IEC jet thruster system can potentially be reduced compared to a high- power Hall-type thruster and also its lifetime can be increased significantly. In this overall context, then, the IEC thruster potentially offers an important improvement in performance for high power thruster applications. Scale-up to p- 11B IEC Space Power Unit/Thruster The electrically driven IEC jet thruster provides an important data base for a next step p- 11B IEC jet thruster. Jumping to p- 11 B for this application may appear overly ambitious. However, neutron less fusion seems essential in a small space thruster to avoid excessive weight from shielding of electronics. Considerable experience with fusing plasmas in IECs has been gained through development of IEC DD neutron sources. These devices operate with ~ 80- keV D-ion beams using the non-Maxwellian character of the IEC. This important characteristic makes use of p- 11B a realistic goal. In fact, operation with circulating ion energies at the desired 150 keV energy for p- 11 B has already been achieved at the UIUC and several other laboratories working on IECs. The issue then is how to achieve adequate confinement times. The approach being pursued at UIUC is the formation of deep potential wells with angular ion injection using a differentially-pumped RF ion gun, as discussed in later sections. A proposed experiment to demonstrate p- 11 B physics is discussed in Section VI. In summary, the extraction of a jet plasma from a gridded IEC opens the way to a number of added plasma applications for the IEC. This present discussion is intended to identify an orderly progress of IEC applications in commercial space power, starting with an electrically driven IEC thruster to a self-powered IEC p- 11 B unit. The attractive characteristics of the electrically driven device, namely light weight, low maintenance, 28 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,~ra~ 8FFIII.tct ~:!II!! 8HLY
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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.