High beta fusion reactor
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The Lockheed Martin Compact Fusion Reactor (CFR) was a
fusion power Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices d ...
project at
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...
’s
Skunk Works Skunk Works is an official pseudonym for Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), formerly called Lockheed Advanced Development Projects. It is responsible for a number of aircraft designs, highly classified research and developme ...
. Its high-
beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...
configuration, which implies that the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure is greater than or equal to 1 (compared to
tokamak A tokamak (; ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field generated by external magnets to confine plasma (physics), plasma in the shape of an axially symmetrical torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement fusi ...
designs' 0.05), allows a compact design and expedited development. The project was active between 2010 and 2019; after that date there have been no updates and it appears the division has shut down. The CFR chief designer and technical team lead, Thomas McGuire studied fusion as a source of space propulsion in response to a NASA desire to improve travel times to Mars.


History

The project began in 2010, and was publicly presented at the Google Solve for X forum on February 7, 2013. In October 2014,
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...
announced a plan to "build and test a compact fusion reactor in less than a year with a prototype to follow within five years". In May 2016, Rob Weiss announced that Lockheed Martin continued to support the project and would increase its investment in it. The project was halted sometime before 2021.


Design

CFR plans to achieve high beta (the ratio of plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure) by combining cusp confinement and
magnetic mirror A magnetic mirror, also known as a magnetic trap or sometimes as a pyrotron, is a type of magnetic confinement fusion device used in fusion power to trap high temperature Plasma (physics), plasma using magnetic fields. The mirror was one of the e ...
s to confine the plasma. Cusps are sharply bent magnetic fields. Ideally, the plasma forms a sheath along the surface of the cusps and plasma leaks out along the axis and edges of the sharply bent field. The plasma lost along the edges recycles back into the cusps. 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 A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular ...
known as a
diamagnetic Diamagnetism is the property of materials that are repelled by a magnetic field; an applied magnetic field creates an induced magnetic field in them in the opposite direction, causing a repulsive force. In contrast, paramagnetic and ferromagn ...
cusp, in which 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. Magnetic field strength is an increasing function of distance from the center. This implies that as the plasma pressure causes the plasma to expand, the magnetic field becomes stronger at the plasma edge, increasing containment. CFR employs
superconducting magnets A superconducting magnet is an electromagnet made from coils of superconducting wire. They must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures during operation. In its superconducting state the wire has no electrical resistance and therefore can conduct much ...
. These allow strong magnetic fields to be created with less energy than conventional magnets. The CFR has no net current, which Lockheed claimed eliminates the prime source of plasma instabilities. The plasma 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 Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared waves. Its wavelength ranges from about one meter to one millimeter, corresponding to frequency, frequencies between 300&n ...
emitters that heat the plasma in their prototypes with neutral beam injection, in which electrically neutral
deuterium Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more c ...
atoms transfer their energy to the plasma. Once initiated, the energy from fusion maintains the necessary temperature for subsequent fusion events. The eventual device may reach in width. The company claims that each design iteration is shorter and far lower cost than large-scale projects such as the
Joint European Torus The Joint European Torus (JET) was a magnetically confined plasma physics experiment, located at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, UK. Based on a tokamak design, the fusion research facility was a joint European project with the ...
,
ITER ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy through a fusion process s ...
or NIF. A Pth reactor, long by in diameter, produces about a reactor, similar in size to an A5W nuclear submarine fission reactor.


Challenges

Ring magnets require protection from the plasma's neutron radiation. Plasma temperatures must reach many millions of
kelvin The kelvin (symbol: K) is the base unit for temperature in the International System of Units (SI). The Kelvin scale is an absolute temperature scale that starts at the lowest possible temperature (absolute zero), taken to be 0 K. By de ...
s. Superconducting magnets must be kept just above
absolute zero Absolute zero is the lowest possible temperature, a state at which a system's internal energy, and in ideal cases entropy, reach their minimum values. The absolute zero is defined as 0 K on the Kelvin scale, equivalent to −273.15 ° ...
to maintain
superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where Electrical resistance and conductance, electrical resistance vanishes and Magnetic field, magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ord ...
. 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 Lithium (from , , ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the ...
atoms, transforming them into tritium to fuel the reactor. The blanket must be an estimated 80–150 cm thick and weigh 300–1000 tons.


Prototypes

The prototype was planned to be a 100-megawatt
deuterium Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more c ...
and
tritium Tritium () or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of ~12.33 years. The tritium nucleus (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the ...
reactor measuring that could fit on the back of a large truck and would be about one tenth the size of current reactor prototypes. 100 megawatts is enough to provide power for 80,000 people. A series of prototypes was constructed to approach this goal.


T-4

Technical results presented on the T4 experiment in 2015 showed a cold, partially ionized plasma with the following parameters: peak electron temperature of 20
electron volts In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV), also written electron-volt and electron volt, is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy gained by a single electron accelerating through an electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum. When u ...
, electron density, less than 1% ionization fraction and of input power. No confinement or fusion reaction rates were presented. McGuire presented two theoretical reactor concepts in 2015. One was an ideal configuration weighing 200 metric tons with 1 meter of cryogenic radiation shielding and 15 tesla magnets. The other was a conservative configuration weighing 2,000 metric tons, with 2 meters of cryogenic radiation shielding and 5 tesla magnets.


T4B

The T4B prototype was announced in 2016. Parameters: * 1 m diameter × 2 m long ** 1 MW, 25 keV H-neutral beam heating power ** 3 ms duration * Assume is converted into fast ions. * ''n'' = * β = 1 (field = ) * ''V'' = 0.2 m3, total energy * Peak ''T''i = * Peak ''T''e = * Peak sheath loss = , about equal to ''P''ei * Peak ring cusp loss = * Peak axial cusp loss =


TX reactor

Parameters: * 7 m diameter × 18 m long, 1 m thick blankets * 320 MW gross * 40 MW heating power, 2.3 s * ''n'' = * β = 1 (field = 2.3 T) * ''V'' = 16.3 m3, 51 MJ total energy * ''T''i = 9.6 keV * ''T''e = 12.6 keV


T5

In July 2019, Jeff Babione – vice president and general manager of Skunk Works – stated: "This year we are constructing another reactor – T5 – which will be a significantly larger and more powerful reactor than our T4, We are current scheduled to have that go online towards the end of this year, so that will be another significant leap in capability and towards demonstrating that the physics underlining our concept works." The T5 reactor was planned to show the heating and inflation of the plasma, as well as measure the depth of the trapped magnetized sheath protecting the walls from the plasma. It also helps measure the losses at the boundaries of the magnetic field lines containing the plasma intersect or wrap around stalks holding the reactor’s superconducting magnets. In particular, T5 will demonstrate the high-density plasma source and the ability to capture and confine the neutral beam injectors that ignite the plasma.


Criticism

Physics professor and director of the UK's national Fusion laboratory Steven Cowley called for more data, pointing out that the current thinking in fusion research is that "bigger is better". According to Cowley, experience building other fusion reactors suggests that when machine size is doubled one achieves 8 times improvement in heat confinement, that is how much of the extremely high temperatures needed for the fusion reaction can be contained without eg. heating the cooled superconducting magnets too much. Cowley thus questions the suggested small size of a working machine.


See also

* ARC fusion reactor * China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor * Fusion Industry Association * Fusor * General Fusion * History of nuclear fusion * Inertial electrostatic confinement *
Polywell The polywell is a proposed design for a fusion reactor using an electric and magnetic field to heat ions to fusion conditions. The design is related to the fusor, the high beta fusion reactor, the magnetic mirror, and the biconic cusp. A set of e ...
* Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production * TAE Technologies


References


External links


Lockheed Martin Compact Reactor design page
* * Solve for X: February 11, 2013 {{Fusion power Sustainable energy Magnetic confinement fusion devices