SBIR-STTR Award

Steady state magnetic fusion concepts must overcome a number of difficulties: (1) maintaining stability and sustaining the current in steady state; (2) continuous heat flux on the first wall; and (3) heating of the plasma to thermonuclear conditions. Although solutions have been suggested for each of these problems - e.g., the steady-state problem could be resolved by being pulsed, the wall problem by using non-metallic first walls, and the heating problem by compression - experiments must be conducted to test the feasibility of these suggestions. This project will use analytic and computational modeling, and will design realistic experiments, to support the physics basis of experiments seeking to resolve these issues.

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:
The promise of economic fusion energy remains elusive, despite many large steps in that direction over the last 50 years. The economic benefits of an energy source, whose reactants are plentiful and products are environmentally benign, would be enormous

Several critical issues stand in the development path of a magnetized target fusion scheme to a working reactor. Important ones are the limit imposed by liner dwell time, and the requirement for symmetry in high convergences. The usual compression schemes tend to require a lot of energy and large chambers. During Phase I we completed computational and analytic studies of the compression and acceleration of compact tori. We used advanced computations benchmarked against analytic theory to determine the best means for the acceleration and compression of a compact torus plasma. Our study included analysis of the stability of a compact torus under compression.

Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee:
The Phase II project will use a new means for compressing and trapping a compact torus to maximize the burn time. The new experiment will be supported by computational efforts and analytic modeling, and will be carried out in house by use of largely existing facilities. In Phase II we will build a plasma piston to impact and compress a small compact torus generated in a flux-conserver shaped to preserve stability. In Phase III, we would seek industrial partners to build a high field, high temperature, compact torus compressor, with the ability to repeat. The aim would be to skip the proof-of-principal stage and go straight to performance extension, based on existing results, and on our ability to accurately simulate plasma behavior with existing computational models