Intertial Confinement Fusion Essay -- Nuclear

Missing FiguresINERTIAL CONFINEMENT FUSION1. Introduction / BeginningsIn the 1940s during the development of thermonuclear explosives, theinertial confinement approach to fusion was born. Weaponsresearchers determined that by use of high energy sources, such as thefission reaction, light nuclei could be fused, olibanum creating intense fusionenergy. Scientists in the controlled fusion camp also realized that tightcompression of fuel pellets could increase the fusion reaction ratewhich is proportional to fuel density. (Robert A. Gross, FusionEnergy, bleak York John Wiley and Sons, 295)Scientists were, at this stage, trying to discover a mechanism whichcould compress a light-nucleus fuel. The invention of high power lasers support the inertial-confinement camp. The radiation from thelaser heats a fuel pellet, and as the plasma from the pellet rapidly expands,a momentum reaction sends compressive waves inward,converging on the pellets core. The energy in the core causes the ignitiono f the pellet. The common desire is to obtain a thermonuclearenergy yield that exceeds the energy which is requiredto heat and compress the solid in the lead the pellet explodeshence the name inertial confinement. Some of the early research in thissubject was done by Nuckolls and Kidder of the Livermore Laboratory,and Bosov and Krokhin of the Kurchatov Institute in theUSSR. (Gross, 295)Since these great efforts, the scientific community has consideredinertial-confinement fusion to be the top alternate method for controlledthermonuclear fusion. The most probable containment, ofcourse, is magnetic confinement fusion. Tokamak Fusion TestReactor (TFTR) in Princeton, New Jersey is argueably the premierma... ...died however, the heavy-ion accelerators show much promise in itsshort time of consideration. Laser light coupling and laser efficiencies havebeen a problem for laser-driven designs. Ion-driven deviceshave problems of their own, particularly in focusing to the required powerdensit y. (Dean, 75) The HYBALL-II project as well as other ICFprojects today have considerably surpassed the yields of the early ICFreactors (SOLASE). In the big picture, however, one should keep in mindthat magnetic-confinement devices show much more promise atthis point.Works CitedDean, Stephen O., (ed.). Prospects for Fusion Power. New York PergamonPress, 1981.Gross, Robert A. Fusion Energy. New York John Wiley and Sons,1984.Velarde, Guillermo, et. al, (ed.). Nuclear Fusion by Inertial ConfinementA Comprehensive Treatise. Boca Raton CRC Press, 1993.