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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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move to high power IEC operations which are non-electrical. Deep space propulsion is
used as an example.
SPACE PROPULSION
The IEC can be used for both near-term electrically driven thrusters for satellite
operations (using the jet mode discussed earlier) and for fusion-powered deep space
propulsion. The latter is illustrated in Reference 5.3 where a D- 3He reactor was utilized.
This design concept is briefly summarized here.
Figure S.S. Image of a Fusion II Spaceship, a 750-MWe IEC Fusion-Powered Manned Spacecraft With
Ion Thruster Propulsion
The IEC Spaceship "Fusion Ship II" is shown in Figures 5.5 and 5.6. (Note: Fusion Ship
II represents an upgrade to high power of an earlier design termed "Fusion Ship I").
The overall spaceship length is 300 meters and the initial mass at mission start is 500
metric tons. Crew and avionics/computers are located in the central compartment at
the forward end of the vehicle. The crew compartment uses 12-m diameter chamber
and could contain a rotating centrifuge for sleep and exercise. A steerable antenna
located on the side of this module provides communication. Twin 175-meter long
assemblies, comprised of 5 D- 3He spherical IEC reactors and Traveling Wave Direct
Energy Convertors (TWDECs) each, generate 1394 MW of 14. 7- MeV proton flux and
469-MW of thermal heat which is converted to 1197 MWe of RF electric power. 242 MW
of the electrical power, then, re-circulates to run the reactors while 750 MWe is used to
drive ion thrusters while the remainder of the energy is rejected as waste heat. A fusion
fuel re-circulation and separation system is operated continuously to remove the fusion
product 4 He from the D- 3 He reactants. Any unburned fuel is collected via the TWDEC
energy convertors and recirculated back to the IEC reactors. This conserves the
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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.