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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.

  • p. 8 …hence a good probability of fusing before being lost from the fusion reaction chamber. In the…
  • p. 11 …If it can, the device would be simpler and smaller than a Tokamak, making it an…
  • p. 14 …However, they showed that grid deformation could be very harmful. This deserves several comments. First, the…
  • p. 15 …Again, this issue will be addressed further later. While earlier workers sought small grid openings designed…
  • p. 17 …More insights will be provided throughout this report, but the reader is encouraged to study the…
  • p. 19 …Upscattering out of the well must be minimized while electron 12 UNCLASSIFIED//EOAt OFFIQI.«1k 11181…
  • p. 29 …It operates by convergence of ions created between the grid and wall onto a small volume…
  • p. 30 …Such thrusters, however, do not scale well to lower powers for small satellites, nor are exhaust…
  • p. 33 …first, the channel grid will be separately hinged with a small servo motor such that its…
  • p. 35 …Thus, the mass of the IEC jet thruster system can potentially be reduced compared to a…
  • p. 43 …More insight into this can be obtained from the distribution functions for trapped ions, sketched in…
  • p. 44 …The source to sink issue noted several times here can be explained as follows. Two opposite…
  • p. 47 …However, since the fusion core radius in these calculations is very small on the order of…
  • p. 49 …instability in finite spherical systems may be excited for small beam velocities compared to those of…
  • p. 50 …However, an experimental study should be performed to verify this result. RIDER - ENERGY BALANCE STUDY Todd…
  • p. 53 …In addition, since both D-D and D- 3He reactions can be used for proton production…
  • p. 54 …This can be viewed as a small scale soft source for individual laboratory studies such as…
  • p. 55 …The 14.1-MeV neutrons from the D-T reaction will be the primary source for…
  • p. 59 …Due to their small size, they can be used in a large array along with TOF…
  • p. 65 …If vis large compared to v11, the effective scattering angle will be large, resulting in retrapping…
  • p. 67 …Fortunately, the IEC can be scaled up in energy gain while keeping a small size since…
  • p. 68 …The small size of the IEC is a key characteristic. If rapid development is to be…
  • p. 71 …In other words, this could also be thought of as a Q=100 DT equivalent breakeven…
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Figure 4.3. Plot of the Q-value (including electron losses) as a Function of (a) Sma, and y with fe= 10·3 ,
(b) Smax and fe with y =5, (c) Sma. and fe with y =100, and (d) Smax and Eo with y= 5 and fe =10-3 • These
plots have been obtained for Eo =100 keV [except (d)], 9b =0.01, and E, =l.04. (Nomenclature is defined in
Reference 4.2).
The source to sink issue noted several times here can be explained as follows. Two
opposite limits of this kind of solution are depicted in Figure 4.4. The realization of
either of these limits depends on the equilibrium between two competing effects,
namely up-scattering of the Maxwellian ion component confined in the well (which
increases as the Maxwellian temperature increases and tends to empty the well), and
down-scattering of the beam (which tends to fill it). The relative importance of these
effects is directly related to the strength relatives of the source and the sink. They are
characterized here by Smax = maximum value of the ion source, and t = ion
replacement time, respectively. Thus, weak sinks and strong sources will result in a
large beam population, increasing the beam down-scattering rate and hence increasing
"effective" Maxwellian temperature, given in the dotted line profile in Figure 4.4.
Conversely, weak sources and strong sinks will result in a small beam population, thus
decreasing the beam down-scattering rate and resulting in lower Maxwellian
temperatures, leading to the solid line profile in Figure 4.4.
37
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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.