Single-pas, heavy ion fusion, systems and method

Abstract

A single-pass heavy-ion fusion system includes a new arrangement of current multiplying processes that employs multiple isotopes to achieve the desired effect of distributing the task of amplifying the current among all the various processes, to relieve stress on any one process, and to increase margin of safety for assured ICF (inertial confinement fusion) power production. Energy and power of the ignition- driver pulses are greatly increased, thus increasing intensity of target heating and rendering reliable ignition readily attainable. The present design eliminates the need for storage rings. Further innovations are to give the HIF (heavy ion fusion) Driver flexibility to drive multiple chambers in the most general case of different total distances between the linac output and each of the various chambers. Using multiple chambers steeply decreases the pro-rata capital investment and operating costs per power production unit, in turn decreasing the cost of power to users.

Description

technical field [0001] In a general sense, the present invention relates to fusion power systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to single pass heavy ion fusion systems and methods. Background technique [0002] The heavy ion drive, defined by R.L. Martin and A.W. Maschke in 1975, uses the known ability of high energy RF (radio frequency) accelerator systems to store ion beam energy on the order of megajoules and to focus the stored energy onto a very small spot. They found that the shorter stopping distance at half the speed of light for nuclei with high atomic numbers (Z) meant that the energy density needed to initiate smaller clean fusion explosions and produce fusion power could be produced in small targets containing fusion fuel. And they show that the successively stored beams can be rearranged into multiple converging streams, compressed in length, and delivered to the target in short-duration pulses required to power the fusion ignition and combus...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, the potential way to use this additional design factor to achieve optimum efficiency was not actively explored and was only formally adopted in the internationally discussed "point" design between 1995 and 1997

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