Download or read book Final Report on Development of Optimized Field Reversed Configuration Plasma Formation Techniques for Magnetized Target Fusion written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The University of New Mexico (UNM) proposed a collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to develop and test methods for improved formation of field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasmas relevant to magnetized target fusion (MTF) energy research. MTF is an innovative approach for a relatively fast and cheap path to the production of fusion energy that utilizes magnetic confinement to assist in the compression of a hot plasma to thermonuclear conditions by an external driver. LANL is currently pursing demonstration of the MTF concept via compression of an FRC plasma by a metal liner z-pinch in conjunction with the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. A key physics issue for the FRC's ultimate success as an MTF target lies in the initial pre-ionization (PI) stage. The PI plasma sets the initial conditions from which the FRC is created. In particular, the PI formation process determines the amount of magnetic flux that can be trapped to form the FRC. A ringing theta pinch ionization (RTPI) technique, such as currently used by the FRX-L device at LANL, has the advantages of high ionization fraction, simplicity (since no additional coils are required), and does not require internal electrodes which can introduce impurities into the plasma. However RTPI has been shown to only trap 50% of the initial bias flux at best and imposes additional engineering constraints on the capacitor banks. The amount of trapped flux plays an important role in the FRC's final equilibrium, transport, and stability properties, and provides increased ohmic heating of the FRC through induced currents as the magnetic field decays. Increasing the trapped flux also provides the route to greatest potential gains in FRC lifetime, which is essential to provide enough time to translate and compress the FRC effectively. In conjunction with LANL we initially planned to develop and test a microwave break- down system to improve the initial PI plasma formation. The UNM team would design the microwave optics and oversee the fabrication and assembly of all components and assist with integration into the FRX-L machine control system. LANL would provide a preexisting 65 kW X-band microwave source and some associated waveguide hardware. Once constructed and installed, UNM would take the lead in operating the microwave breakdown system and conducting studies to optimize its use in FRC PI formation in close cooperation with the needs of the LANL MTF team. In conjunction with our LANL collaborators, we decided after starting the project to switch from a microwave plasma breakdown approach to a plasma gun technology to use for enhanced plasma formation in the FRX-L field-reversed configuration experiment at LANL. Plasma guns would be able to provide significantly higher density plasma with greater control over its distribution in time and space within the experiment. This would allow greater control and ne-tuning of the PI plasma formed in the experiment. Multiple plasma guns would be employed to fill a Pyrex glass test chamber (built at UNM) with plasma which would then be characterized and optimized for the MTF effort.
Download or read book Magnetized Target Fusion Collaboration Final Report written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear fusion has the potential to satisfy the prodigious power that the world will demand in the future, but it has yet to be harnessed as a practical energy source. The entry of fusion as a viable, competitive source of power has been stymied by the challenge of finding an economical way to provide for the confinement and heating of the plasma fuel. It is the contention here that a simpler path to fusion can be achieved by creating fusion conditions in a different regime at small scale (̃a few cm). One such program now under study, referred to as Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF), is directed at obtaining fusion in this high energy density regime by rapidly compressing a compact toroidal plasmoid commonly referred to as a Field Reversed Configuration (FRC). To make fusion practical at this smaller scale, an efficient method for compressing the FRC to fusion gain conditions is required. In one variant of MTF a conducting metal shell is imploded electrically. This radially compresses and heats the FRC plasmoid to fusion conditions. The closed magnetic field in the target plasmoid suppresses the thermal transport to the confining shell, thus lowering the imploding power needed to compress the target. The undertaking described in this report was to provide a suitable target FRC, as well as a simple and robust method for inserting and stopping the FRC within the imploding liner. The FRC must also survive during the time it takes for the metal liner to compress the FRC target. The initial work at the UW was focused on developing adequate preionization and flux trapping that were found to be essential in past experiments for obtaining the density, flux and most critically, FRC lifetime required for MTF. The timescale for testing and development of such a source can be rapidly accelerated by taking advantage of a new facility funded by the Department of Energy. At this facility, two inductive plasma accelerators (IPA) were constructed and tested. Recent experiments with these IPAs have demonstrated the ability to rapidly form, accelerate and merge two hypervelocity FRCs into a compression chamber. The resultant FRC that was formed was hot (T{sub ion} ̃400 eV), stationary, and stable with a configuration lifetime several times that necessary for the MTF liner experiments. The accelerator length was less than 1 meter, and the time from the initiation of formation to the establishment of the final equilibrium was less than 10 microseconds. With some modification, each accelerator can be made capable of producing FRCs suitable for the production of the target plasma for the MTF liner experiment. Based on the initial FRC merging/compression results, the design and methodology for an experimental realization of the target plasma for the MTF liner experiment can now be defined. The construction and testing of the key components for the formation of the target plasma at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) will be performed on the IPA experiment, now at MSNW. A high density FRC plasmoid will be formed and accelerated out of each IPA into a merging/compression chamber similar to the imploding liner at AFRL. The properties of the resultant FRC plasma (size, temperature, density, flux, lifetime) will be obtained. The process will be optimized, and a final design for implementation at AFRL will be carried out. When implemented at AFRL it is anticipated that the colliding/merging FRCs will then be compressed by the liner. In this manner it is hoped that ultimately a plasma with ion temperatures reaching the 10 keV range and fusion gain near unity can be obtained.
Download or read book Final Report on the Magnetized Target Fusion Collaboration written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear fusion has the potential to satisfy the prodigious power that the world will demand in the future, but it has yet to be harnessed as a practical energy source. The entry of fusion as a viable, competitive source of power has been stymied by the challenge of finding an economical way to provide for the confinement and heating of the plasma fuel. It is the contention here that a simpler path to fusion can be achieved by creating fusion conditions in a different regime at small scale (~ a few cm). One such program now under study, referred to as Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF), is directed at obtaining fusion in this high energy density regime by rapidly compressing a compact toroidal plasmoid commonly referred to as a Field Reversed Configuration (FRC). To make fusion practical at this smaller scale, an efficient method for compressing the FRC to fusion gain conditions is required. In one variant of MTF a conducting metal shell is imploded electrically. This radially compresses and heats the FRC plasmoid to fusion conditions. The closed magnetic field in the target plasmoid suppresses the thermal transport to the confining shell, thus lowering the imploding power needed to compress the target. The undertaking to be described in this proposal is to provide a suitable target FRC, as well as a simple and robust method for inserting and stopping the FRC within the imploding liner. The timescale for testing and development can be rapidly accelerated by taking advantage of a new facility funded by the Department of Energy. At this facility, two inductive plasma accelerators (IPA) were constructed and tested. Recent experiments with these IPAs have demonstrated the ability to rapidly form, accelerate and merge two hypervelocity FRCs into a compression chamber. The resultant FRC that was formed was hot (T & ion ~ 400 eV), stationary, and stable with a configuration lifetime several times that necessary for the MTF liner experiments. The accelerator length was less than 1 meter, and the time from the initiation of formation to the establishment of the final equilibrium was less than 10 microseconds. With some modification, each accelerator was made capable of producing FRCs suitable for the production of the target plasma for the MTF liner experiment. Based on the initial FRC merging/compression results, the design and methodology for an experimental realization of the target plasma for the MTF liner experiment can now be defined. A high density FRC plasmoid is to be formed and accelerated out of each IPA into a merging/compression chamber similar to the imploding liner at AFRL. The properties of the resultant FRC plasma (size, temperature, density, flux, lifetime) are obtained in the reevant regime of interest. The process still needs to be optimized, and a final design for implementation at AFRL must now be carried out. When implemented at AFRL it is anticipated that the colliding/merging FRCs will then be compressed by the liner. In this manner it is hoped that ultimately a plasma with ion temperatures reaching the 10 keV range and fusion gain near unity can be obtained.
Download or read book Magnetized Target Fusion Field Reversed Configuration Formation and Injection MTF FRC written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DETAR Task 0rder 0016 supports the Air Force Research Laboratory's ongoing effort to demonstrate magnetized target fusion in a laboratory environment. The experimental premise involves forming a plasma in a field-reversed configuration (FRC), translating it a short distance from where it was formed into a cylindrical flux-conserving shell (solid liner), and then adiabatically compressing it to fusion-relevant densities and temperatures by imploding the liner around it. The name "FRCHX," for "FRC Compression Heating eXperiment" has been given to this effort. SAIC and its subcontractors perform this work in collaboration with AFRL personnel, as well as with scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Nevada, Reno.
Download or read book Fusion Energy Update written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Generation and Compression of a Target Plasma for Magnetized Target Fusion written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Magnetized target fusion (MTF) is intermediate between the two very different approaches to fusion: inertial and magnetic confinement fusion (ICF and MCF). Results from collaboration with a Russian MTF team on their MAGO experiments suggest they have a target plasma suitable for compression to provide an MTF proof of principle. This LDRD project had tow main objectives: first, to provide a computational basis for experimental investigation of an alternative MTF plasma, and second to explore the physics and computational needs for a continuing program. Secondary objectives included analytic and computational support for MTF experiments. The first objective was fulfilled. The second main objective has several facets to be described in the body of this report. Finally, the authors have developed tools for analyzing data collected on the MAGO a nd LDRD experiments, and have tested them on limited MAGO data.
Download or read book Directed Energy HPM PP PPS Efforts Magnetized Target Fusion Field Reversed Configuration written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This effort continued MTF-FRC experimental work at Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL's) FRX-L (Field Reversed eXperiment -- Liner) facility and the start-up of a parallel experimental effort for forming and translation Field Reversed Configurations (FRCs) at AFRL's Building 322 on Kirtland Air Force Base. This effort also included developing an improved Crowbar switch to reduce modulation of the main discharge used to form the FRCs, as well as considerable design and construction of other FRC formation hardware. In addition, two liner-on-vacuum implosion experiments were also performed on the Shiva Star High Energy Capacitor Bank to verify the scheme that has been proposed to adiabatically compress and heat the FRCs to fusion-relevant densities and temperatures. This scheme used a deformable liner-electrode contact instead of the standard sliding contact in order to allow the placement of an aperture in the electrode that is sufficiently large (8 cm diameter) to enable FRC injection into the liner interior.
Download or read book Formation of a Field Reversed Configuration for Magnetic and Electrostatic Confinement of Plasma written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A system and method for containing plasma and forming a Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) magnetic topology are described in which plasma ions are contained magnetically in stable, non-adiabatic orbits in the FRC. Further, the electrons are contained electrostatically in a deep energy well, created by tuning an externally applied magnetic field. The simultaneous electrostatic confinement of electrons and magnetic confinement of ions avoids anomalous transport and facilitates classical containment of both electrons and ions. In this configuration, ions and electrons may have adequate density and temperature so that upon collisions they are fused together by nuclear force, thus releasing fusion energy. Moreover, the fusion fuel plasmas that can be used with the present confinement system and method are not limited to neutronic fuels only, but also advantageously include advanced fuels.
Download or read book Progress on the FRX L FRC Plasma Injector at LANL for Magnetized Target Fusion written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The FRX-L Field Reversed Configuration plasma is now operational at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The goal of the project is to demonstrate the production of suitable FRC target plasmas for later MTF (Magnetized Target Fusion) implosion experiments which will first be carried out at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in a few years' time. Expected plasma parameters in the 4 cm diameter, 30 cm long FRC are ne(almost equal to)1017 cm-3, T(almost equal to)100-300 eV, at 4-5 Tesla fields, with a lifetime of (almost equal to)20 microseconds. The system includes a 0.5 T bias field, 70 kV 250 kHz ringing pre-ionization, and a 1.5 MA, 200 kJ main-theta coil bank. Maxwell rail gap plasma switches are used to start the PI bank, the main theta coil bank, and to crowbar the main bank. Initial results using the first diagnostic set of excluded flux loops, B-dot probes, visible light diodes, a fiber-optically coupled gated intensified visible spectrometer, and a 3.3 micron quadrature interferometer are presented. Future diagnostics include end-on bolometry, Thomson scattering, and a multi-chord fanned HeNe side-on interferometer. Multi-turn cusp and guide coils will be added later this year, to enable translation experiments into a cylindrical metal liner.
Download or read book Fusion power by magnetic confinement program plan written by United States. Energy Research and Development Administration. Division of Magnetic Fusion Energy and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Burning Plasma written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-04-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Significant advances have been made in fusion science, and a point has been reached when we need to decide if the United States is ready to begin a burning plasma experiment. A burning plasmaâ€"in which at least 50 percent of the energy to drive the fusion reaction is generated internallyâ€"is an essential step to reach the goal of fusion power generation. The Burning Plasma Assessment Committee was formed to provide advice on this decision. The committee concluded that there is high confidence in the readiness to proceed with the burning plasma step. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), with the United States as a significant partner, was the best choice. Once a commitment to ITER is made, fulfilling it should become the highest priority of the U.S. fusion research program. A funding trajectory is required that both captures the benefits of joining ITER and retains a strong scientific focus on the long-range goals of the program. Addition of the ITER project will require that the content, scope, and level of U.S. fusion activity be defined by program balancing through a priority-setting process initiated by the Office of Fusion Energy Science.
Download or read book Magnetic Fusion Technology written by Thomas J. Dolan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-02-10 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magnetic Fusion Technology describes the technologies that are required for successful development of nuclear fusion power plants using strong magnetic fields. These technologies include: • magnet systems, • plasma heating systems, • control systems, • energy conversion systems, • advanced materials development, • vacuum systems, • cryogenic systems, • plasma diagnostics, • safety systems, and • power plant design studies. Magnetic Fusion Technology will be useful to students and to specialists working in energy research.
Download or read book Energy Research Abstracts written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Semiannual, with semiannual and annual indexes. References to all scientific and technical literature coming from DOE, its laboratories, energy centers, and contractors. Includes all works deriving from DOE, other related government-sponsored information, and foreign nonnuclear information. Arranged under 39 categories, e.g., Biomedical sciences, basic studies; Biomedical sciences, applied studies; Health and safety; and Fusion energy. Entry gives bibliographical information and abstract. Corporate, author, subject, report number indexes.
Download or read book MHD Modeling of Magnetized Target Fusion Experiments written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) is an alternate approach to controlled fusion in which a dense (0(1017-'8 cm-')), preheated (O(200 ev)), and magnetized (0(100 kG)) target plasma is hydrodynamically compressed by an imploding liner. If electron thermal conduction losses are magnetically suppressed, relatively slow O(1 cm/microsecond) 'liner-on-plasma' compressions may be practical, using liners driven by inexpensive electrical pulsed power. Target plasmas need to remain relatively free of potentially cooling contaminants during formation and compression. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) calculations including detailed effects of radiation, heat conduction, and resistive field diffusion have been used to model separate target plasma (Russian MAGO, Field Reversed Configuration at Los Alamos National Laboratory) and liner implosion experiments (without plasma fill), such as recently performed at the Air Force Research Laboratory (Albuquerque). Using several different codes, proposed experiments in which such liners are used to compress such target plasmas are now being modeled in one and two dimensions. In this way, it is possible to begin to investigate important issues for the design of such proposed liner-on-plasma fusion experiments. The competing processes of implosion, heating, mixing, and cooling will determine the potential for such MTF experiments to achieve fusion conditions.
Download or read book Mirror based and Field reversed Approaches to Magnetic Fusion written by and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Study of Plasma Liner Driven Magnetized Target Fusion Via Advanced Simulations written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The feasibility of the plasma liner driven Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) via terascale numerical simulations will be assessed. In the MTF concept, a plasma liner, formed by merging of a number (60 or more) of radial, highly supersonic plasma jets, implodes on the target in the form of two compact plasma toroids, and compresses it to conditions of the fusion ignition. By avoiding major difficulties associated with both the traditional laser driven inertial confinement fusion and solid liner driven MTF, the plasma liner driven MTF potentially provides a low-cost and fast R & D path towards the demonstration of practical fusion energy. High fidelity numerical simulations of full nonlinear models associated with the plasma liner MTF using state-of-art numerical algorithms and terascale computing are necessary in order to resolve uncertainties and provide guidance for future experiments. At Stony Brook University, we have developed unique computational capabilities that ideally suite the MTF problem. The FronTier code, developed in collaboration with BNL and LANL under DOE funding including SciDAC for the simulation of 3D multi-material hydro and MHD flows, has beenbenchmarked and used for fundamental and engineering problems in energy science applications. We have performed 3D simulations of converging supersonic plasma jets, their merger and the formation of the plasma liner, and a study of the corresponding oblique shock problem. We have studied the implosion of the plasma liner on the magnetized plasma target by resolving Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in 2D and 3D and other relevant physics and estimate thermodynamic conditions of the target at the moment of maximum compression and the hydrodynamic efficiency of the method.
Download or read book Field Reversed Configuration Formation Simulations with MACH2 written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) plasma is formed by applying a modest magnetic bias field to a gas, then ionizing the gas, and quickly applying a larger field of opposite polarity. The theta pinch that results can produce a magnetically insulated plasma of hundreds of electron volts in temperature. Simulations of this experiment can now be performed using the 2 1/2-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code MACH2. This report describes the modifications to the code employed and simulations performed to test the model that explores three different anomalous resistivity models and three different initial densities for one of those models.
