Acceleration of compact toruses and fusion applications
The Compact Torus (Spheromak-type) is a near ideal plasma confinement configuration for acceleration. The fields are mostly generated by internal plasma currents, plasma confinement is toroidal, and the compact torus exhibits resiliency and stability in virtue of the ``rugged`` helicity invariant. Based on these considerations we are developing a coaxial rail-gun type Compact Torus Accelerator (CTA). In the CTA, the CT ring is formed between coaxial electrodes using a magnetized Marshall gun, it is quasistatically ``precompressed`` in a conical electrode section for inductive energy storage, it is accelerated in a straight-coaxial electrode section as in a conventional rail-gun, and it is focused to small size and high energy and power density in a final ``focus`` cone section. The dynamics of slow precompression and acceleration have been demonstrated experimentally in the RACE device with results in good agreement with 2-D MHD code calculations. CT plasma rings with 100 {micro}gms mass have been accelerated to 40 Kj kinetic energy at 20% efficiency with final velocity = 1 X 10{sup 8} cm/s (= 5 KeV/H{sup +}). Preliminary focus tests exhibi dynamics of radius compression, deceleration, and bouncing. Compression ratios of 2-3 have been achieved. A scaled-up 10-100 MJ CTA is predicted to achieve a focus radius of several cm to deliver = 30 MJ ring kinetic energy in 5-10 nsec. This is sufficient energy, power, and power density to enable the CTA to act as a high efficiency, low cost ICF driver. Alternatively, the focused CT can form the basis for an magnetically insulated, inertial confinement fusion (MICF) system. Preliminary calculations of these fusion systems will be discussed.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 582165
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC--106121; CONF-9010209--; ON: DE98052025; BR: YN0100000
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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