Documents / Report

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…
UNCLASSIFIEDf ;retl 8ffllil.t.k WE'lii '"" X
• Tetryl (Nitramine, C?HsNsOs) with p = 1.93 g/cm 3 .
• Landmine - includes plastic explosives, such as Semtex, which is made of RDX and
PETN, and C-4, which is made of RDX.
B. Nuclear Materials such as natural uranium (U-238) and weapon grade with enriched
(U-235). Testing can be done with this natural uranium which can be obtained without
special restrictions.
C. Drugs like Cocaine (CuH21NO4) and Heroin ( C21H2JNOs ) are of high in C and H, low
in O and low-medium Cl densities.
D. Common articles such as ethanol alcohol/wine (C2H6O) with p = 0. 789 g/cm3,
clothes like silk (C3HnN3O6) with p = 0.789 g/cm3, and nylon (C6H11NO) with p = 1.1
g/cm3, and metal utensils, including knives.
The list provides a guide for use of articles for simulation testing in the IEC inspection
station. Fortunately, the combination of sources in the integrated station provides good
coverage of this wide variety of items. Conventional single source units suffer "gaps" in
coverage.
Pulsed Power for the Inspection Station
Advanced materials and methods are used in its design to minimize weight and size.
This extends use of stationary units (e.g. at airports) to mobile platforms such as vans,
law enforcement vehicles or light military trucks. Figure 5.1 shows a block diagram of
the power control circuits.
c•~;. cecs;e ~ '•;;,-,'..''~" ;a; H"
i
I
I
Figure 5.1. Block Diagram of the IEC Pulsed Power System
The power is taken from the platform power system and can be either 12-48 VDC or
single phase 120 VAC. The high voltage power supply is a solid-state switch-mode
inverter followed by a voltage multiplier circuit that incrementally steps the voltage up
a series of capacitors fed by high voltage diodes. The energy storage unit is composed
of high voltage capacitor segments with a low series inductance and resistance. The
capacitor bank is charged and discharged at the pulse repetition rate. The custom
capacitor sections are engineered to withstand the mechanical stress caused by rapid
charge/discharge cycling. The nominal capacitor bank voltage is 120 kV at full pulse
power output. A triggered spark gap is used to switch rapidly a high-energy pulse of
current from the capacitor bank to pulse modulate the magnetron. The triggered gap is
a compound three-element spark gap design. The arc is sustained until the capacitor
49
UNCLASSIFIED/)EiOAt OEiEil&l11J.k Wli'lii SU.kif

Not linked to a story yet.

About this file

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.