Review Project

Plasma Fusion
Jay Kumar Shah Roll No : 12973 9, November, 2013

Aim: To carry out thermonuclear fusion

Fusion conditions Temperature of 100 million K High pressure
LAWSONS CRITERIA MUST BE SATISFIED

FACTS :
Confinement with B only. Lower density and high confinement time Idea of racetrack (8) shape introduced.

But how ??????

LYMEN SPITZER in 1950 introduced concept of STELLARATOR.

Advantages:
no current driven instability. Stationary plasma operation.

Disadvantages:
Complex designing. More coils produces more force so need a strong structure. LHD in JAPAN is based on this stell approach.

BENNET Pinch concept

compressing electric filament using magnetic forces Z (zeta) pinch
Plasma serves as a conductor. Current is along axial direction and magnetic field is azimuthal. Lorentz force comes into play. Condition of high pressure satisfied. Theta pinch is more efficient than z pinch.

Z accelerator in SANDIA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Delivers approx. 20 MA current to create B>1000T and pressure ranging from Megabar to Gigabar. High pressure leads to Implosion generating plasma with energy density of 10 MJ/cm^3 producing X-rays.

Produced x rays can be used for inertial confinement fusion Kink instability is a drawback

Inertial confinement fusion

Heating and compression of fuel
Delivers energy from high energy beams of lasers, electrons or ions. Compression and heating of the fuel pellet.

Fuel consists of mixture of Deuterium and tritium. Core density approx. 20 times the density and ignites at temperature 10^8 C. Rayleigh Taylor instabilities are likely to occur in the accelerating phase.

Tokamak and field reverse pinch

TOKAMAK
Uses B to confine plasma. B is in helical shape around the plasma. NEUTRAL BEAM INJECTION is used for heating plasma. toroidal field > poloidal field. Economically very costly JET in UK produce 16 MW fusion power for 22 MW input.

REVERSE FIELD PINCH

Poloidal and toroidal fields are comparable. Cylincrical chamber inside of toroidal chamber. works towards state of minimum energy, Reduces the cost of super conducting magnets. Axial field is biased. Requires large driven current.

3 probe diagnostic

Open end systems

More simpler confinement than toroidal configuration. More MHD stable. Rotationally symmetric and minimum B configuration.

For n approx. 10^20 m^-3 and temperature of 100 keV, lawson criterion is not satisfied.

conclusion
We found that Tokamaks has better confinement time than stellarators. we need to find out the most efficient way to confine plasma with longer stability and least MHD instabilities.

THANK YOU!!!!!