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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.

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“The Times”31 pages

  • p. 8 …This is important for long run times since 10n bombardment of the grids, hence grid wire…
  • p. 9 …This time can be restated in terms of the number of ion recirculations in the IEC…
  • p. 15 …This work and others on the small gridded systems at that time showed several important problems…
  • p. 17 …interesting concept is the idea of ion focusing, either in space or time, or some other…
  • p. 18 …confinement time for aneutronic fusion. This assumes, however, very precise control is maintained over the energy…
  • p. 23 …By selecting the pulse width to match or exceed the ion confinement time, typically order of…
  • p. 27 …This is the approach used at the UIUC. However, introduction of the source into the configuration…
  • p. 30 …The second jet would serve the integration purpose of the platform without having to expend time…
  • p. 35 …The issue then is how to achieve adequate confinement times. The approach being pursued at UIUC…
  • p. 36 …step in a timely fashion, however. The Dipole Assisted IEC (DaIEC) The dipole assisted IEC DaIEC…
  • p. 38 …in the current experiment. It is found that electron density increases about 17 times more than…
  • p. 41 …Namely, the time scale for collisional degradation of the beam-like ion distribution function is crucial…
  • p. 42 …would homogenize the speed within the ion beam a~er some time, making the speed difference…
  • p. 43 …1) The electrostatic well is deep enough (Eo > 100 kV); 2) Ion confinement time is long…
  • p. 44 …The source to sink issue noted several times here can be explained as follows. Two opposite…
  • p. 49 …The time convergence test suggests that employing the largest time step compatible with accuracy in a…
  • p. 50 …When an ion beam is hot, the waves excited by the instability are ion acoustic type…
  • p. 51 …used an analytical model of charge- exchange collisions in the IEC plasma to include ion time…
  • p. 53 …Nevins, Can inertial electrostatic confinement work beyond the ion-ion collisional time scale?" Phys. Plasmas, Vol…
  • p. 54 …This method uses a pulsed high-energy neutron source and the time-of-flight (TOF) diagnostics…
  • p. 57 …The longer the charge time, the higher the charge in the energy storage capacitor bank and…
  • p. 58 …The challenge in these systems is that the unloading time is short and the container is…
  • p. 59 …by the number of detectors, the detector configuration, the collimated beam size, the acquisition time, and…
  • p. 62 …The Tokamak has a shorter trip time by employing a power level that is six times…
  • p. 63 …In this fashion, an array of multiple IECs increase the overall confinement time roughly in proportion…
  • p. 64 …This recirculation significantly increases the confinement time verses that of a simple cusp devise, leading to…
  • p. 65 …This re-trapping greatly increases the confinement time of a MCSA fusion device. 58 UNCLASSIFIED/;CEiOAt…
  • p. 66 …in the IEC high power-to-weight of the MCSA enables fast trip times. The concept…
  • p. 67 …across the outer surface, so increased confinement times have been achieved by going to the massively…
  • p. 68 …Here n is the ion density and Tis the ion confinement time. Assuming the converged core…
  • p. 69 …A specially designed radio frequency (RF) ion gun is installed on the side of the chamber…
UNCLASSIFIED//FIHl 8FFHil.t.k Wfili 8Hklf
The three detection techniques shown in Table 5.1 have previously been used
independently in inspection units. The present integrated unit makes use of all three
simultaneously. Thus, the strengths of each device combine to provide consistent
overall coverage of elements/objects.
Table 5.1. Three Kinds of Techniques Previously Used in Explosives Detection
System
Here, TNA and FNA represent thermal and fast neutron activation, respectively.
TNA FNA X-ray
Element Identification Element Density
Nitrogen High Medium -
Carbon Very Low Very High -
Oxygen NA Iligh -
Hydrogen Very High High -
Chlorine Very High High -
C/0 Ratio NA High -
Background Noise High Low NA
Imaging: geometry & localization Pulsed FNA
Limited provides depth High resolution
information information
Suitcase to Suitcase to cargo,
Application Small suitcase not good for
cargo plastics ohjects
Cunfiguraliun CurnplicatcJ Cumplicatcd Simple
Operation & Maintenance Cost High High Low
The integrated IEC system employs a combination of PFNA/TNA methods and
conventional x-ray techniques to collect elemental information as well as a 3-D imaging
of any suspected objects. The 14.1-MeV neutrons from the D-T reaction will be the
primary source for TOF FNA while thermalized neutrons from a block of neutron
thermalizing plastic in front of the 2.45-MeV DD IEC will be used for TNA. This
combination will increase spatial resolution and significantly reduce the false alarm rate
to a low level compared to conventional methods which employ single sources and are
limited to yield due to lack of broad area sources.
Overview for Weapons/Nuclear Material Simulation Articles
The following three categories of items provide a overview of articles of interest for
detection in inspection stations.
A. Explosives which are of high D and N, low C and H elemental densities are listed
below with sizes ranging from 8 x 8 x 8 cm 3 to 20 x 20 x 20 cm 3 .
• RDX (Cyclonite, C3H6N6O6) with p = 1.83 g/cm 3 .
• TNT(Trinitrotoluene, C1HsNJO6) with p = 1.654 g/cm 3 .
• PETN(Penthrite, CsHsN4O12) with p = 1.773 g/cm3.
• TATB(Triaminotrinitrobenzene, C5H 6N6O6 ) with p = 1.93 g/cm3.
48
UNCLASSIFIED/ /Pett errI@ItllL ~:!II!! 8HLV

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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.