2
A 200 km/s
Dr. F. Douglas Witherspoon,
Dr. F. Douglas Witherspoon,
Business Official, fdwitherspoon@compuserve.com
DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-04ER83978
Amount: $652,500
In magneto-inertial Fusion, which offers the promise of a
faster, lower cost path to fusion energy, a material liner is imploded to
compress a magnetized target plasma to fusion conditions. In one approach, plasma-jet-driven
magneto-inertial fusion, an array of pulsed plasma guns is utilized to create a
spherically imploding shell of very high velocity, high momentum flux plasma. This approach requires the development of
plasma accelerators capable of achieving velocities of 200 km/s, with very
precise timing and density profiles.
This project will investigate a new coaxial plasma accelerator
configuration, which will allow the acceleration of high density collisional
plasmas to velocities of 200 km/s. To control
and prevent the formation of deleterious instabilities, such as the blowby
instability, a specialized plasma injection system will be developed. In Phase
I, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) modeling, using the
AFRL Mach 2 code, was used to confirm the concept. An additional geometrical configuration of
the coaxial electrode profiles, which can achieve the required mass and
velocity parameters, was identified. Experimental
hardware for a
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The plasma jets should be useful for developing commercial fusion power, refueling magnetically confined plasma, high specific impulse plasma thrusters for space, laboratory simulations of astrophysical jets, ultrafast high current switches for pulsed power applications, and materials processing.