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Defense Intelligence Reference Document Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion

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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.

  • 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…
REFERENCES
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4.1 W.M. Nevins, Can inertial electrostatic confinement work beyond the ion-ion
collisional time scale?" Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 2, No. IO, October (1995) pp. 3804-3819.
4.2 L. Chacon, G. H. Miley, D. C. Barnes, and D. A. Knoll, "Energy gain calculations
in Penning fusion systems using a bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck modelz" Phys. of
Plasmas, vol. 7, no. 11, (2000) p. 4547.
4.3 T .N. Tiouririne and D. C. Barnes, Optimization of SCIF Fusion Systems", Bull.
Am. Phys. Soc., vol. 40 (1995) pp. 1665.
4.4 I.V. Tzonev, J. M. DeMora, G.H. Miley, "Effect of Large Ion Angular Momentum
Spread and High Current on Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Potential Structures",
Proc. 16th IEEENPSS Symp. Dn Fusion Engr. (Miley and Elliott, eds.) IEEE paper
95CH35852, 1476-1481 (1996).
4.5 G.H. Miley and H. Momota, "Virtual Cathode in a Stationary Spherical Inertial
Electrostatic Confinement", Fusion Science and Technology, Vol. 40, July (2001).
4.6 H.J. Kim, "Instability Studies on a Spherical Inertial Electrostatic Confinement",
Dissertation, Submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirements of degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, NPRE Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
(2006).
4.7 T.H. Rider, "A general critique of inertial-electrostatic confinement fusion
systems", Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 2, No. 6, June (1995) p. 1853.
4.8 G.H. Miley, John M. DeMora, Brian E. Jurczyk, Martin Nieto, "Computational
Studies of Collisional Processes in Inertial Electrostatic Glow Discharge Fusion Devices,"
18th Symposium on Fusion Engineering, (1999) p 23.
Section V. Potential Applications
The ultimate application for IECs is for electrical power production. This is discussed
further in Section VI. Section V concentrates on various near-term "spin off"
applications of neutron/proton/x-ray sources and also non-electrical power applications
such as space propulsion.
NEUTRON/PROTON/XRAY SOURCES
As seen from the discussion to this point, the main application of the IEC to date has
been as a small portable neutron source for NAA. In addition, since both D-D and D- 3He
reactions can be used for proton production, IECs have also been pursed for medial
isotope and PET scan isotope production. However, due to the need for high source
strengths to fully compete in this arena, that use is still undergoing research. Another
novel application noted earlier is the use of the IEC to simulate implantation of D+ and
He+ in candidate fusion reactor first wall materials. Yet another novel use involves
running the IEC with reverse polarity such that the trapped electrons produce soft x-
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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.