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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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UNCLASSIFIED/ ;<F9A: 9FFI51.11k WE&i &•lk¥ 3.13 J. Khachan, A. Samarian, "Dust diagnostics on an inertial electrostatic confinement discharge", Phys. Letters A, vol. 363, no. 4 (2007) pp. 297-301. 3.14 L. Blackhall, J. Khachan, "A simple electric thruster based on ion charge exchange", vol. 40, No. 8, (2007) pp. 2491-2494. Section IV. IEC Theory Early basic IEC theory was briefly described in Section I. Section IV will now turn to some more recent studies starting with an early study by Bill Nevins (Reference 4.1) that has caused concern in the community about the suitability of the IEC for a fusion power reactor. Nevins did a semi analytic analysis where IEC systems are predicated including a non-equilibrium ion distribution function. Coulomb collisions between ions cause this distribution to relax to a Maxwellian on the ion-ion collisional time scale. His Onion-shaped conductor ov Reflector ''' /,,'0' 1/.;,~;; "~ e emitter \\\analysis suggests that the input power required to prevent this relaxation, thus maintaining the IEC configuration for times beyond the ion-ion collisional time -Wo kV - few V Superconducting magnet scale, is greater than the fusion power produced. Thus, he concluded that IEC systems show little promise for the development of commercial electric power plants. Nevin's analysis appears to be very thorough, however, as discussed next, it suffers from several Figure 4.1. Cross Section of the Experimental Layout of the PFX-1 Experiment. The emitter -electron source, onion-shaped anode and reflector form an axial electrostatic well for electron axial confinement. Radial confinement is provided by the axial magnetic field. The reflector is biased slightly more negative than the emitter to avoid electron losses to the reflector. key, but subtle assumptions that may force the pessimistic results. Later, to further explore issues raised by Nevins, Luis Chacon, doing his thesis with G. Miley, decided to use a Fokker Plank model for analysis of the IEC so that some of the questionable assumptions used by Nevins could be relaxed. This study, presented in Reference 4.2, specifically dealt with a Penning-type IEC due to interest in the Penning trap experiment at LANL. The experimental device, PFX-1 is illustrated in Figure 4.2 while the reactor-like configuration modeled by Chacon is shown in Figure 4.2. It should be stressed however, that the conclusions still apply in principle to the ion injected IEC since the issues involve the potential well trapping common to both. The Penning trap and the ion injected devices differ in how the well is formed and stabilized, but the physics of trapped plasma confinement is the same. Namely, the time scale for collisional degradation of the beam-like ion distribution function is crucial since short times (as the fusion time) would prevent a power reactor. Nevins addressed this issue by calculating collisional relaxation rates from a beam-like, monoenergetic ion population, absolutely confined in a square potential well. From his analysis, Nevins concluded that the IEC will thermalize and lose ion focusing before enough fusion 34 UNCLASSIFIED//F8~ 8FFHiiI.«1k Wli&i &•lklf
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 72 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.