High beta fusion reactor

Charles Chase and his team at Lockheed have developed a high beta configuration, which allows a compact reactor design and speedier development timeline.

The high beta fusion reactor (also known as the 4th generation prototype T4) is a project being developed by a team led by Charles Chase of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. The "high beta" configuration allows a compact fusion reactor design and speedier development timeline. It was first presented at the Google Solve for X forum on February 7, 2013.[1]

Lockheed Martin's plan is to "build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year with a prototype to follow within five years."[2]

History

The project began in 2010.[3]

In October 2014 Lockheed Martin announced that they will attempt to develop a compact fusion reactor that will fit "on the back of a truck" and produce 100 MW output - enough to power a town of 80,000 people.[4]

The chief designer and technical team lead for the Compact Fusion Reactor (CFR) is Thomas McGuire, who did his PhD thesis[5][6] on fusors at MIT.[7] McGuire studied fusion as a source of space propulsion in graduate school in response to a NASA desire to improve travel times to Mars.[8][9][10]

Fusion

Nuclear fusion works by stripping electrons from atoms of two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, mixing the resulting nuclei and confining the mixture, called a plasma, into a small space. The plasma then is heated to accelerate the nuclei (in a gas, particle speed is a function of temperature). This is necessary because both nuclei are positively-charged and high velocity is necessary to overcome electrostatic repulsion to force them to collide. At high enough speed, fusion produces a helium atom and a highly energetic neutron, whose energy can be captured by slowing it down. Transferring this energy to a coolant allows it to be used to generate electricity. A small amount of deuterium and tritium can match the performance of a conventional nuclear reactor, but without the nuclear waste and with much lower radiation risk.[3]

Design

Lockheed is using magnetic mirror confinement that contains the plasma in which fusion occurs by reflecting particles from high-density magnetic fields to low-density ones.[11]

Lockheed is targeting a relatively small device that is approximately the size of a conventional jet engine. The prototype is approximately 1 meter by 2 meters in size. The company claims that this enables a much faster development cycle since each design iteration could be produced more quickly and at far lower cost than large-scale projects such as the Joint European Torus or ITER.[11]

The CFR uses two mirror sets. A pair of ring mirrors is placed inside the cylindrical reactor vessel at either end. The other mirror set encircles the reactor cylinder. The ring magnets produce a type of magnetic field known as a diamagnetic cusp, in which the magnetic forces rapidly change direction and push the nuclei towards the midpoint between the two rings. The fields from the external magnets push the nuclei back towards the vessel ends. This process is known as ‘recirculation’.[3]

One of the project's innovations is the use of superconducting magnets. They allow strong magnetic fields to be created with less energy than conventional magnets.The CFR has no net current, which Lockheed claims eliminates the prime source of plasma instabilities. The plasma also has a favorable surface-to-volume ratio, which improves confinement. The plasma's small volume reduces the energy needed to achieve fusion. The project plans to replace the microwave emitters that heat the plasma in their prototypes with neutral beam injection, in which electrically neutral deuterium atoms transfer their energy to the plasma. Once initiated, the energy from fusion maintains the necessary temperature for subsequent fusion events. The CFR's beta (ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic field pressure) is an order of magnitude greater than in tokamaks.[3]

Challenges

The ring magnets require protection from the plasma's damaging neutron radiation. Also plasma temperatures must reach many millions of Kelvin. The magnets have to be kept just above absolute zero to maintain superconductivity.[3]

The 'blanket' component that lines the reactor vessel has two functions: it captures the neutrons and transfers their energy to a coolant and forces the neutrons to collide with lithium atoms, transforming them into tritium to fuel the reactor. The weight of the blanket is a key element for mobile applications. The project estimates that it could weigh 300-1000 tons.[3]

Patents

Lockheed has applied for three patents US application 20140301518A1,US application 20140301519A1 and US application 20140301517A1.

Criticism

Physics professor and director of the UK's national Fusion laboratory Steven Cowley called for more hard data, pointing out that the current thinking in fusion research is that "bigger is better". Other fusion reactors achieve 8 times improvement in heat confinement when machine size is doubled.[12]

Applications

See also

References

  1. ↑ FuseNet: The European Fusion Education Network, archived from the original on 2013-05-06
  2. ↑ Shalal, Andrea. "Lockheed says makes breakthrough on fusion energy project". Reuters. Retrieved 15 October 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Nathan, Stuart (22 October 2014). "New details on compact fusion reveal scale of challenge". The Engineer. Retrieved March 2015.
  4. ↑ Norris, Guy (20 October 2014). "Fusion Frontier". Aviation Week & Space Technology.
  5. ↑ Improved Lifetimes and Synchronization Behavior in Multi-grid Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Devices, MIT, Feb 2007, archived from the original on 2013-05-10
  6. ↑ McGuire, Sedwick (21 July 2008), "Numerical Predictions of Enhanced Ion Confinement in a Multi-grid IEC Device", 44th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit
  7. ↑ Hedden, Carole (2014-10-20). "Meet The Leader Of Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Reactor Team". Aviation Week & Space Technology. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
  8. ↑ Norris, Guy (15 October 2014), "Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details", Aviation Week & Space Technology, archived from the original on 2014-10-17, retrieved 18 October 2014
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Norris, Guy (14 October 2014), "High Hopes – Can Compact Fusion Unlock New Power For Space And Air Transport?", Aviation Week & Space Technology, archived from the original on 18 October 2014
  10. ↑ Hedden, Carole (20 October 2014), Meet "The Leader Of Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Reactor Team", Aviation Week & Space Technology, Archived archived from the original on 18 October 2014
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Talbot, David (October 20, 2014). "Does Lockheed Martin Really Have a Breakthrough Fusion Machine?". Technology Review. Retrieved March 2015.
  12. ↑ McGarry, Brendan (16 October 2014), "Scientists Skeptical of Lockheed’s Fusion Breakthrough", DefenseTech', retrieved 23 October 2014

External links