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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. 48 …of the electrostatic potential on a potential hill near the center. The density limit of an…
  • p. 50 …is fixed and located on the left hill in the diagram of growth rate versus beam…
UNCLASSIFIED/ ; t ;- :-- -r-"~ dV
.:: _l I vi.,.
- Real
~ ' >
0: ' cathode
'~ '·-- 0 0.075
Radiu!\ \m I
Figure 4.5. The Definition of the Double Well
Depth: Double Well Depth [%] = -dV /Vtot x 100.
The case shown assumes 30-keV injection.
!EC cathode grid
j ------- -- -- ' •', '
/~ '.
' ·~,vJ.
\,, vt!:v _,:'
' ,
' -- -.... - -...
Figure 4.6. The Definition of the Parallel and
Perpendicular Velocities at the IEC Cathode Grid
The definition of angular momentum is also illustrated in Figure 4.6. In spherical
geometry, the velocity component perpendicular to the radius axis represents the
angular momentum.
TZONEV ET AL. - DEEP WELL STUDY
Tzonev et al. (Reference 4.4) used the IXL (ion accelerated code), a 1-D electrostatic
Poisson-Vlasov equation solver for use in spherical geometry. IXL was originally
developed by Mission Research Corporation for R.W. Bussard. The primary purpose of
the code is to determine an electrostatic potential consistent with the dynamics of the
charged particles within that same potential, and to determine the charged particle
density distribution inside of the spherical cathode. While IXL neglects collisional
effects, it still provides an important limiting case where space charge effects dominate.
The boundary conditions for each particle population are characterized by five
parameters: injected beam current, average injection energy, energy spread associated
with the velocity component in both parallel and perpendicular directions, and the
number of recirculations through the core.
Tzonev et al. found that deep double electrostatic potential wells can occur at high ion
and electron currents (30 A-60 A); high perpendicular ion energy spread (3 keV-14
keV); low perpendicular electron energy spread (3 eV), and low radial ion energy
spread (0.1 eV-0.5 eV). An example is given in Figure 4.7.
39
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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.