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This Defense Intelligence Agency reference document, dated 1 November 2010, is one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2010 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It covers fusion plasma physics, confinement methods, and propulsion concepts that use aneutronic fuels such as hydrogen and boron-11. It concludes that such thrusters may soon replace satellite ion thrusters. It also finds that they will not be practical beyond the solar system without breakthrough propulsion physics.
“The Advance”7 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'f811. 8ffl81*1e lal!ii 8111!'1 I• ,--t 'TT : ./ ·F-,/ ,' 'I ' .,' ·,' "' ',' 'r' , , ' . ' 'rr', Figure 1. Fusion Reaction Cross Sections vs. Temperature Table 2: Fusion Peak Interaction Temperatures and Fusion Energy to X-rays fuel Ti (keY) Pru~iou:'PBrem-:rrabluug iD-) jD-:D jD-'H, ~He-:He p--fLi - --Bp - ., 50 500 : 1)(1 :ooo S00 30(1 1-1.0 ' 9- ' )- 0 - 0 cl 0 ,-- If the ratio is low, it takes more confining energy to sustain the reaction. The largest fusion output is obtained when the temperature is chosen so that /T" is a maximum (known as the Lawson Criteria), which for plasma ignition is achieved when the fusion reactions produce enough power to maintain the temperature without external heating. This is shown in Table 3 for the most relevant neutronic and aneutronic fusion fuels. While the ignition temperature is up to a factor of 10 higher for the aneutronic fusion reactions, the confinement power required for ignition will be one to two orders of magnitude greater. This will therefore require some unique confinement concepts to achieve ignition. 4 UNCLASSIFIED,' }flilll. lilffllil*le lal!il!! 8Hl!V
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 36 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.