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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.
“BEAMS”43 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ /P9R: 9PPl!ltllt t!l91!! 9HL'I' rays which can be extracted through a special port (requires a thin low-Z window for transmission). This can be viewed as a small scale soft source for individual laboratory studies such as done at various large scale national laboratories like ANL, BNL, and LBL (synchrotron "light sources"). However, this use has not progressed much past the initial laboratory studies. The cylindrical geometry offers a unique configuration for security inspection applications. To illustrate this we next consider a design proposed for such a system. INTEGRATED X-RAY /NEUTRON SOURCES This integrated inspection system was proposed by G. Miley, et al., in Reference 5.1. It incorporates combined 2.5- and 14-MeV IEC neutron sources and an IEC x-ray source. Such neutron sources have already been described, but some comments about the x- ray version are worthwhile. The cylindrical IEC, like the spherical one, can be converted to an attractive tunable x-ray source with minimum alteration of the apparatus. X-ray operation involves reversing electrode polarities and adding electron emitters along the vessel wall. Hydrogen gas is substituted for deuterium since in this configuration the main function of gas ions is to provide electron Bremsstrahlung emission. Intense emission is concentrated in a small volume surrounding the central axis due to the high electron density formed there. The resulting x-ray energy spectrum is peaked at an energy equivalent to about two-thirds of the applied voltage. In the inspection station, a voltage around 120 kV is employed to obtain ~SO-kV x-rays with some distribution of energies above and below this mean value. X-ray production is spread along the axis over a long line-like region in the IEC providing broad area coverage for imaging, consistent with the broad coverage of the companion IEC neutron sources. Consequently, the basic concept of the integrated inspection unit is to combine IEC neutron and x-ray sources plus appropriate detectors into a single "package". This combination expands the range of elements that can be detected during a single scan and incorporates x-ray imaging with the 3-D detector array for NAA to obtain improved identification of the shape and location of suspected objects in a container. In cases where the object is too large to allow good x-ray penetration, information is still obtained from the 3-D NAA detector array. Nuclear and Chemical Explosive Detection Techniques Most current inspection systems concentrate on x-ray imaging. This interrogation relies on the photoelectric effect or Compton Scattering Imaging (CSI). It provides good localization and some geometric information for higher Z materials. The NAA technique, including both thermal neutron analysis (TNA) and fast neutron analysis (FNA), are powerful methods for detecting certain types of explosives. Basic elements such as oxygen, carbon, and chlorine present in the explosives can be identified through the (n, n'y) reaction initiated by fast neutrons. The gamma rays produced in the reaction are characteristic of elements being interrogated. Another basic element in many explosives, nitrogen, is usually measured through (n, y) reactions initiated by thermal neutrons. Either steady-state or pulsed sources can be employed for TNA. However, increased sensitivity can be obtained with pulsed FNA (PFNA). This method uses a pulsed high-energy neutron source and the time-of-flight (TOF) diagnostics to reduce the "noise" effect resulting from scattered neutrons and x-rays. 47 UNCLASSIFIED/ }EiOAt OEiEiIGIPL IP&'i Ollb¥
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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.