Inductive
Plasma Accelerator--MSNW, 16436 SE 39th Place,
Dr. Timothy Ziemba,
Principal Investigator, ziemba@covad.net
Dr. John Slough, Business
Official, sloughj@comcast.net
DOE Grant No.
DE-FG02-04ER84011
Amount:
$100,000
For
the plasma jet liner approach to magnetized target fusion, a plasma accelerator
is required that is capable of launching a plasma jet with a mass of 0.2 mg to
0.4 mg and a diameter no larger than about 20 cm.
In addition, the accelerator must be capable of attaining plasma/plasmoid
velocities in excess of 200 km/s, a timing precision better than a microsecond
down to nanoseconds, and a controllable density profile of high uniformity and
purity. This
project will achieve the desired acceleration parameters by designing and
constructing an inductive plasmoid accelerator based on a propagating magnetic
wave. The approach will use previous
results with compact toroid acceleration, together with numerical modeling and a
novel solid state accelerator design, to develop the accelerator efficiently and
at low cost. In Phase I, the
inductive plasma accelerator will be analyzed analytically and numerically to
determine the optimal configuration for application to the plasma jet liner.
Testing of key electrical circuitry will also be performed, and a design
for the inductive plasma accelerator, to be built in Phase II, will be detailed.
Commercial
Applications and Other Benefits as
described by the awardee: The
inductive plasma accelerator (IPA) should have a natural application to high
power electric propulsion in space. The
IPA also could be readily adapted as a fueler for future fusion reactors such as
the international fusion reactor, ITER, now being planned.
It could also find application in current tokamak experiments, adding
rotational momentum and velocity shear for enhanced stability and transport
control.