Fusion Power

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Fusion Power

• ?

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The Fusion Process

• Joining together light isotopes to produce energy
• A thermonuclear device can maintain a sufficient
  quantity of light isotopes together under
  extremely high temperatures to induce fusion

http//www.eas.asu.edu/holbert/eee460/
3
Remember Binding Energy

• The energy with which the nucleus is held
  together
• Can be calculated using the difference in mass
  between the atom and the sum of its individual
  components
• Emc2

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Fusion Reactions

• Thermonuclear Fusion
• D T --- a n 17.6 MeV
• D D --- 3He n 3.25 MeV
• D D --- T H 4.03 MeV
• 3He D --- a H 18.4 MeV
• 6Li H --- 3He a 4.02 MeV
• Thermonuclear Fission
• H 11B --- 12C --- 3a 8.68 MeV

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Fusion Ingredients

• Deuterium
• Concentration 0.016 in H2O
• Ratio DH 16700
• Tritium
• Small production by cosmic radiation in
  atmosphere
• Produced by neutrons bombarding lithium
• Very high temperatures
• Plasma

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Fusion Confinement

• Want to confine plasma so as to encourage
  reactions and prevent it from melting the reactor
  vessel walls
• Gravitational
• Stars have large mass and the material necessary
• Magnetic
• Strong magnetic fields shape and confine plasma
• Inertial
• Bombard a frozen mixture of fuel with lots of
  high-powered lasers to compress and heat the
  pellet

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Research and Development

• Tokamak
• Joint European Torus (JET)
• International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
  (ITER)
• Z-Pinch
• Z-machine
• Other fusion studies
• Sonofusion
• Cold fusion
• Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor

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Tokamak

• Toroidal chamber in magnetic coils (Russian)
• Machine creating a doughnut-shaped magnetic field
  to contain plasma
• Invented in 1950s
• Widely used concept to study fusion power
  technology

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak
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JET Joint European Torus

• Largest tokamak nuclear fusion experiment in the
  world
• Culham, Oxfordshire, UK
• D-T fuel
• Full experiment 1997
• Achieved 16 MW Power
• Q0.7 (ratio power out to power in)

http//www.jet.efda.org/
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ITER

• International magnetic fusion research experiment
  to be built in Cadarache, France
• Designed to generate 500 MW for 500 s
• "demonstrate the scientific and technological
  feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful
  purposes

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
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ITER

• ITER (pronounced as in "fitter") means "the way"
  in Latin
• Plasma operation estimated for 2016
• Cost 12.1 billion

http//www.iter.org/index.htm
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Z-Pinch or Zeta Pinch

• Electrical current used within plasma to generate
  and compress it
• Lenz Law
• Vaporize conducting material in fusion fuel to
  compress it and produce fusion energy

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Z-machine

• Sandia National Labs
• Largest x-ray generator in world
• 20 million A vaporizes tungsten wires
• Generates up to 290 TW
• Releases 80 times the world's electrical power
  usage for a few trillionths of a second,
  consuming equal to the usage of 100 houses for
  two minutes
• Temperature gt2 GK

http//zpinch.sandia.gov/
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Sono- or Bubble Fusion

• Acoustic cavitation of bubbles
• Shockwaves produce temperature up to 10 MK
• Currently under investigational research by
  numerous laboratories

http//www.chemsoc.org
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Cold Fusion?

• Achieve controlled fusion at low temperatures
• Muon fusion
• Takes a lot of energy to generate muons
• Palladium Electrodes
• UofU 1989
• Pd and D2O
• Energy release is electromagnetic
• Mixed reproducibility results terminated any
  future progress

For more information http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Cold_fusion
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Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor

• Inertial Electrostatic Confinement
• Patented 1968
• First developed fusion device
• Inject high-temperature ions into reaction
  chamber
• Lack of funding for further research
  (http//www.fusor.net)

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth-Hirsch_fus
or
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Examples and Problems 9.1

• Energy Generated by Fusion Reactions
• Calculate energy generated by 1 kg of hydrogen in
  the following reaction
• Where the atomic masses of H, T, and He are
  1.007825, 3.01605, and 4.00260, respectively
• 1 kg H needs 2.99263 kg T to produce 3.97152 kg
  He
• The mass difference (defect) is 0.02111 kg

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Examples and Problems 9.1

• Use Einsteins equation E mc2
• Where c 2.9979x108 m/s
• E 1.897x1015 J

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Examples and Problems 9.1

• Other Problems
• Calculate energy released for other fusion
  reactions
• Calculate energy released for fission reactions
• Additional Analysis
• Compare fusion energy released to other energy
  generation methods

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Examples and Problems 9.2

• Design of a Tokamak Fusion Reactor

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Examples and Problems 9.2

• Other Problems
• Additional Analysis

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Examples and Problems 9.3

• Lithium Cooling of a Tokamak Reactor

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Examples and Problems 9.3

• Other Problems
• Additional Analysis