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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.
“The Advance”12 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ iP'l!II'- l!IP'P'll!lllit l!l!i! 8HL¥ ~10 16 cm· 3, ion trap times of~ 1 sec are required. While very demanding, plasma simulations show that carefully controlled injection can provide the potential well formation (trap) required to achieve this goal. PROPOSED BREAKEVEN EXPERIMENT Studies of gridded configurations discussed earlier have achieved reaction rates of up to 1012 reactions per second(~ 1 Watt of fusion power). Although these power levels fall well below the requisite "break even" condition for power production, corresponding neutrons production makes the IEC an excellent compact source for practical NAA. Consequently this application and then related "spin-off" type projects have continued to advance IEC basic physics understanding to the point where a pathway to a power reactor can now be envisioned. Present IEC experiments at UIUC are designed to baseline Q impact of ion injection conditions combined with supplemental electron sources to maintain the desired quasi-neutrality. One of the current experiments, shown in Figure 6.2, consists of a 16-inch diam. spherical vacuum system with a spherical grid held at a high potential. This system produces about 10 8 reactions/sec based on neutron counting experiments. A specially designed radio frequency (RF) ion gun is installed on the side of the chamber to study controlled ion injection and corresponding potential well formation for ion trapping. Spherical f(v) 10-21,--------------:;-;---""----;;;;:::::i -10-22 ill) 10-23 'E -.. P-11 B1"5 .; 10-24 ~ i:: 0 .,u.. 10-25 ..0:: 3He+2 10-26 IEC well depth ( kV) Figure 6.1. p- 11 B Fusion Cross Section Energy Requirements. The p-"B reaction rate approaches that of D-T at very high energies, Le. deep potential wells. 62 UNCLASSIFIED/ fF&lil: QFFI&l11J.k I l&'i Ollb¥
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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.