Fuel pellet injection into heavy-ion inertial fusion reactor

The emissions to the atmosphere, by a heavy ion inertial fusion reactor in accidental and normal operations, are in form of tritium gas with two chemicals forms of tritium: HT and HTO. Emissions of 100% HT have been analyzed in this work, and their consequences in the dosimetry. The primary phase of the emission depends on the atmospheric conditions. As a consequence, the tritium is dispersed far from the source. The HT can be oxidized in the stratosphere or in the surface by microbiological action to convert it to HTO, and back to the air in a reemission process or penetrate into the subground. In the form of HT, the effective dose equivalent (EDE) is important in the case of intake (inhalation, skin absorption, or ingestion), because tritium is a beta emitter of low energy and the dose by external uptake is not considerable. Thus, the dose by ingestion contributes the most to the total dose in the case of HT rather than HTO. It constitutes 98% of the total EDE, in contrast with the contribution to the total dose by HTO, which is only 40%.

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10-Hz beads pellet injection and laser engagement

Nuclear Fusion ◽

10.1088/1741-4326/ac3d69 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yoshitaka Mori ◽

Katsuhiro Ishii ◽

Ryohei Hanayama ◽

Shinichiro Okihara ◽

Yoneyoshi Kitagawa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fusion Energy ◽

Free Fall ◽

Laser Pulses ◽

Intense Laser ◽

Injection System ◽

Fuel Pellet ◽

Inertial Fusion ◽

Inertial Fusion Energy ◽

Pellet Injection ◽

Γ Ray

Abstract Laser Inertial Fusion Energy reactor requires repetitive fuel pellet injection and laser engagement to fuse fusion fuel beyond a few Hz. We demonstrate 10 Hz free-fall bead pellets injection and laser engagement with γ-ray generation. Diameter of 1 mm deuterated polystyrene beads were engaged by counter illuminating ultra-intense laser pulses with intensity of 5 x1017 W/cm2 at 10 Hz. The spatial distribution of free-fall beads was 0.86 mm in horizontal, and 0.18 mm in vertical. The system operated beyond 5 minute, 3500 beads supply with achieved frequencies of 2.1 Hz for illumination on bead and 0.7 Hz for γ-ray generation, these frequencies increments three times in relation to the previous 1 Hz injection system. The operation duration was limited by pellet supply. This injection and engagement system can apply for Laser Inertial Fusion Energy research platform.

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Researches on a reactor core in heavy ion inertial fusion

Laser and Particle Beams ◽

10.1017/s0263034616000665 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 34 (4) ◽

pp. 705-713 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

S. Kondo ◽

T. Karino ◽

T. Iinuma ◽

K. Kubo ◽

H. Kato ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fusion Reactor ◽

Ion Beam ◽

Fusion Energy ◽

Reactor Core ◽

Heavy Ion ◽

Blast Waves ◽

Energy Output ◽

Inertial Fusion ◽

Reactor Wall ◽

Particle Accelerators

AbstractIn this paper, a study on a fusion reactor core is presented in heavy-ion inertial fusion (HIF), including the heavy-ion beam (HIB) transport in a fusion reactor, an HIB interaction with a background gas, the reactor cavity gas dynamics, the reactor gas backflow to the beam lines, and an HIB fusion reactor design. The HIB has remarkable preferable features to release the fusion energy in inertial fusion: in particle accelerators HIBs are generated with a high driver efficiency of about 30–40%, and the HIB ions deposit their energy inside of materials. Therefore, a requirement for the fusion target energy gain is relatively low, that would be ~50 to operate an HIF fusion reactor with a standard energy output of 1 GW of electricity. In a fusion reactor, the HIB charge neutralization is needed for a ballistic HIB transport. Multiple mechanical shutters would be installed at each HIB port at the reactor wall to stop the blast waves and the chamber gas backflow, so that the accelerator final elements would be protected from the reactor gas contaminant. The essential fusion reactor components are discussed in this paper.

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