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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. 7 …Emphasis is placed on work in these areas at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, although…
  • p. 8 …of how inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion works. Gas ~ccd I in~ Spherical Vacuum . Chamber !!1…
  • p. 10 …While Hirsh worked with Farnsworth to demonstrate early experimental success with IEC experiments (Reference 1.2…
  • p. 11 …Such work was soon taken up in several other laboratories, including Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL…
  • p. 12 …electron) injected traps (as does the present author's work). This selection was largely driven by…
  • p. 15 …This work and others on the small gridded systems at that time showed several important problems…
  • p. 17 …Recent work has shown that by properly programming the distribution function of the injected electrons it…
  • p. 18 …Results indicate that although the formalism works well during the early phases of compression, when the…
  • p. 21 …Hirsch Working With Philo Farnsworth I' I'· 0 ,,, 10•u w "',. ~ 40~ CRONS D- -,C •~7…
  • p. 22 …This worked well, but the design was eventually discarded to move to RF guns with much…
  • p. 23 …This work substituted a metallic hybrid getter for the external pumping on the IEC chamber. With…
  • p. 24 …Another important example of the use of a compact IEC neutron source is the work at…
  • p. 25 …2.7) The IEC developed for this work used a magnetron ion generation technique to improve…
  • p. 26 …Still the design worked reasonably well for the initial mine detection experiments. Unfortunately, the project was…
  • p. 27 …as shown by the hybrid magnetron source work in Japan. Another point noted is the advantage…
  • p. 29 …As already noted, the basic physics of this version was originally studied in pioneering work by…
  • p. 30 …Relation to Other Prior Thrusters NASA and other laboratories have worked toward developing advanced Hall Thrusters…
  • p. 31 …Indeed, the thruster concept arose from work on a fusion based IEC (Reference 3.5). To…
  • p. 32 …Khachan's work. It too looks very promising. 25 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,u;oAt OFFIGIPk IP&'i OIIU{
  • p. 35 …at the UIUC and several other laboratories working on IECs. The issue then is how to…
  • p. 39 …In follow-on work, they simplified the modeling of charge exchange with an analytical approach to…
  • p. 40 …Satsangi, "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Experiments at Low Working Pressure," Prepared under U.S. Army contract DAAK…
  • p. 42 …In Chacon's work, a bounce-averaged Fokker-Planck (BAFP) model was employed to obtain steady…
  • p. 45 …Before discussing this work, some definitions for the potential well structure will be reviewed. POTENTIAL WELL…
  • p. 48 …However, much more work needs to be done along these lines to fully identify the optimal…
  • p. 52 …As pointed out by Khachan his work noted D2+ becomes more significant in lower voltages). In…
  • p. 53 …Nevins, Can inertial electrostatic confinement work beyond the ion-ion collisional time scale?" Phys. Plasmas, Vol…
  • p. 70 …Chacon's work, thermalized ions build up and additional quasi- Maxwellian distriution in the trap). Still…
  • p. 71 …To accomplish this result quickly on a modest budget, we need to simplify the work by…
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Retrapping of Axial-Loss Particles
Axial plasma particle loss escaping out through the end cone (spindle cone) of the first
MCSA unit should be retrapped in the second unit because of "KAM effective
scattering". This KAM scattering occurs as particles move into the null-field region
within each SIEC unit. Figure 5.9 illustrates the axial magnetic field component along
the centerline of a two-unit MCSA. Particles escaping from the low field region of one
unit pass into the neighboring unit through the high magnetic field region between the
two-units. Upon entering the IEC region, the direction of the particle is effectively
randomized (i.e. Kam Scatter) when it loses adiabatic invariance in the field null region.
Although particles with high velocities parallel to the magnetic field will not experience
as much effective scattering, a majority of the particles entering the null field region
should experience scattering and retrapping.
120
100
80
60
40
20
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Low-Field
Confinemen
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Axial Position (m)
Figure 5.9. Axial Magnetic Field Strength Along Two-Unit MCSA Centerline
1
This KAM scattering process is illustrated conceptually in Figure 5.10. Before entering
the null-field region, particles have a gyroradius that depends on their perpendicular
velocity. If vis large compared to v11, the effective scattering angle will be large,
resulting in retrapping in the case of the MCSA. In the high-field region, the gyro-radius
of the particle is small. When the low-field region is reached, the particle moves in a
straight-line path along the vector direction at the edge of the null region. Since the
phase of the gyro motion of the particles is random at this point, the vector direction
they assume in crossing the null is random. The result then can be viewed, as a
random, collisionless, scattering process. Particles that stream along the axis and enter
a neighboring IEC scatter in this way and become confined in the neighboring IEC
(termed axial-loss "re-trapping"). This re-trapping greatly increases the confinement
time of a MCSA fusion device.
58
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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.