A Deuterium-Fueled FRC Fusion Reactor

As previously noted [1, 2], between the mainline fusion concepts represented by ITER and NIF, a cost minimum exists at about a megagauss. Operation at such a high field can be accomplished by imploding liner or plasma flux compression. Three main challenges [3] are: stability, cost for repetition, and protection from the copious number of high-energy neutrons. To these we add a fourth: the large size of the tritium facility for reactors based on D-T [4]. The first three challenges may be met by the Stabilized Liner Compressor (SLC), which provides repetitive implosion and recapture of a liquid metal liner stabilized by rotation and free-piston drive, compressing an elongated FRC. Recent calculations indicate that the SLC technique can usefully apply to so-called advanced fuels (D-3He, catalyzed D-D) to avoid the fourth challenge. In particular, use of only deuterium as fuel in the temperature range 15-75 keV offers complete burning of the 3He and T produced. The SLC accesses this temperature regime by strong adiabatic compression, while the liquid liner protects the reactor from high-energy D-D and D-T neutrons.

 

1. P.J. Turchi, IEEE Trans. on Plasma Sci., 36, 1, 52 (2008).

2. P.J. Turchi, S.D. Frese, M.H. Frese, IEEE Trans. on Plasma Sci., 45, 10, 2800 (2017).

3. P.J. Turchi, in Proc. of 16^th Intern. Conf. on Megagauss Magnetic Field Generation and Related Topics, 25 – 29 Sept 2018, Tokyo, Japan. ieeexplore.ieee.org/.xpl/tocresult.jsp?isnumber=8722602.

4. S. Wilms, ITER UID THR7JS (Karlsruhe, 2016).