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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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D-D IEC for 1 rsA
D-T IFC
for PFNAiFNA Detector Array
/
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(-~)/ /
Lu•gg..,ge ' 'IEC for x-ray \r
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\ Top View
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Figure 5.2. Schematic (view from top} of a broad coverage IEC inspection System for luggage
inspection
This unit employs two broad area neutron sources to provide both 14.1-MeV and 2.45-
MeV neutron coverage. The IEC Bremsstrahlung source provides broad area 80 kV x-
rays. An array of gamma and x-ray detectors is provided for simultaneous x-ray
analysis using a fuzzy logic artificial intelligence system to interpret the combined
signals. In the inspection station, shown in Figure 5.2, typical of airport luggage
inspection stations, objects being interrogated pass between sources and detection
array on a conveyor belt. For maximum efficiency a duplicate conveyor belt and
detection array (not shown in Figure 5.2) would be placed on the left hand side of the
IEC sources. For other cases, such as unloading container from a ship the detectors
system might be suspended along the side of the vessel with containers as they are
lowered from the upper decks to the waiting cargo train cars or trucks (see Figures 5.3
and 5.4 and related discussion). The challenge in these systems is that the unloading
time is short and the container is large and thick. The present system with its multi-lEC
broad coverage and fast fuzzy analysis technology is designed to overcome these
issues. Further, conventional accelerator type systems that are candidates for such use
are hampered by size and cost. Thus, they have not received wide use in sea ports. The
increased accuracy and reduced cost of the present system should enable wide use.
This would close a vital gap in our seaport/airport cargo security that has been widely
cited by critics of the present handling of port security.
51
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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.