| ...Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor | |
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Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor The Colliding Beam Fusion Reactor is a magnetic confinement system that avoids the typical anomalous transport (refers to all processes in which loss of particles or energy takes place - it is due to a variety of instabilities that lead to turbulence) that plagues current reactor designs. The reactor is compact with good accessibility and low maintenance costs. Most of the technologies needed to evaluate this concept exist, or could become available with simple engineering modifications to existing technologies. The device is based on an alternate confinement system called a Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) (a magnetic topology whereby the axial field inside the reactor is reversed [as compared to the externally applied field] by plasma currents) that confines beams of fuel ions. An essential component of the design is the use of advanced fuels (fuels with non-neutron producing primary reactions) such as Hydrogen and Boron-11. For this particular reaction, for example, the fusion products are all charged particles for which highly efficient direct conversion of the energy is feasible and neutron flux and associated on-site radioactivity is virtually non-existent. Main Advantages of the CBFR: -Simple linear geometry with singly connected plasma. -Simple magnet setup with no toroidal field and, thus, only solenoidal magnetic coils like a mirror. -Closed magnetic field region for confinement of fuel. -Natural divertor outside the separatrix: Allows for extraction of charged fusion products. Prevents formation of scrape-off-layer. Subdued heat conduction due to vacuum layer outside of separatrix. Possibility of direct energy converters at the ends. -High "Beta" configuration: Allows use of advanced fuel. High power density. Better fuel burnup due to existence of magnetic field null: non-adiabatic ions are available over a wide range of energies that pass through the null field surface periodically (even if they have quite different mass or charge) and thereby increase the fusion probability. Majority of high energy particles: better stability and slower transport over the entire spectrum of turbulence. |
