Block Ignition Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) for Space Propulsion

Miley, George H.; Hora, H.; Chen, Yu; Osman, Frederick; Badziak, J.; Wołowski, J.; Sheng, Zheng-Ming; Zhang, Jie; Zhang, Weiyan; He, X. T.

doi:10.2514/6.2008-4612

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Such a power plant is ideal for stationary electrical generation in a power station or for space propulsion. 30 Modest pre-compression by chemical driving 7 or with high density cluster methods 55 could improve performance even further especially for p-11 B. The X-ray radiation produced in the reaction chamber is #200 keV which can be screened off and does not lead to nuclear reactions in the power stations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the beginning of fusion energy research, a long term goal has been to use the unique H-11 B reaction: H + 11 B ¼ 3 4 He + 8.664 MeV (4) since it results in the production of MeV alpha particles and no neutrons by bombarding boron targets with protons of energies up to 150 keV. 29,30 The energetic alpha particle products are ideal for highly efficient direct conversion into electricity to achieve a reduction in waste heat pollution. 2 The produced alpha particles can also be collimated with magnetic fields for space propulsion.…”

Section: Hydrogen-boron Fusion With Negligible Radioactivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 The produced alpha particles can also be collimated with magnetic fields for space propulsion. 2,30 Secondary reactions lead to some H-11 B radioactivity but this is less per unit of energy produced than burning coal, 31 which naturally contains 2 ppm uranium. However, it has been evident from the beginning that the H-11 B fusion reaction is much more difficult to achieve than using deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion fuel, as seen from the relative reaction cross sections.…”

Section: Hydrogen-boron Fusion With Negligible Radioactivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fusion energy without radioactivity: laser ignition of solid hydrogen–boron (11) fuel

Hora

Miley

Ghoranneviss³

et al. 2010

Energy Environ. Sci.

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The advent of ultra-high power lasers allows laser power levels that are about 1000 times the power of all the power stations in the USA. This opens the way to new approaches for inertial confinement fusions (ICF) that in turn can drastically reduce the laser input energy needed to achieve practical ICF power. The specific approach discussed here involves inducing a fusion burn wave by laser-driven impact of a relatively large block of plasma on the outside of a solid density fusion target. This new method is specifically selected to enable the extremely attractive, but demanding, neutron-free proton-B-11 fusion that potentially can lead to the long sought goal of an ultra ''clean'' fusion power plant.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hydrogen-boron Fusion With Negligible Radioactivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hydrogen-boron Fusion With Negligible Radioactivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Fusion energy without radioactivity: laser ignition of solid hydrogen–boron (11) fuel

Hora

Miley

Ghoranneviss³

et al. 2010

Energy Environ. Sci.

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“…3a is not suitable for a magnetic confinement or inertial confinement (at any density) reactor." 2), there may a basically different and alternatively simplified way for the H-11 B reaction, if instead of the laser ignition of spherical fuel pellets, the plane geometry block ignition Hora, 2003Hora, , 2007aHora, , 2007bMiley et al, 2008) is considered. 2), there may a basically different and alternatively simplified way for the H-11 B reaction, if instead of the laser ignition of spherical fuel pellets, the plane geometry block ignition Hora, 2003Hora, , 2007aHora, , 2007bMiley et al, 2008) is considered.…”

Section: Difficulties At Spherical Compressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Threshold for laser driven block ignition for fusion energy from hydrogen boron-11

et al. 2009

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Controlled fusion energy from burning hydrogen with boron-11 is of interest because no neutrons are produced. Following the scheme of ignition by spherical irradiation by laser or particle beams, one has to deal with exorbitant conditions of densities and input energies. A new approach following the scheme of block ignition with laser pulses of picosecond (ps) duration and more than petawatt (PW) power led to the possibility of plane geometry irradiation of the fuel using the anomalous effect of block ignition for deuterium tritium (DT) based on updated conditions for the initial computations. We present the extension for H-11 B resulting in a very less dramatic difference to DT than in the case of spherical pellet geometry. Ignition thresholds may be only about one order of magnitude higher and the needed temperatures of about 50 keV are no problem for the skin layer acceleration by nonlinear forces (SLANF) for the block generation.

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Nonlinear force driven plasma blocks igniting solid density hydrogen boron: Laser fusion energy without radioactivity

et al. 2009

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Energy production by laser driven fusion energy is highly matured by spherical compression and ignition of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel. An alternative scheme is the fast ignition where petawatt (PW)-picosecond (ps) laser pulses are used. A significant anomaly was measured and theoretically analyzed with very clean PW-ps laser pulses for avoiding relativistic self focusing. This permits a come-back of the side-on ignition scheme of uncompressed solid DT, which is in essential contrast to the spherical compression scheme. The conditions of side-on ignition thresholds needed exorbitantly high energy flux densities E*. These conditions are now in reach by using PW-ps laser pulses to verify side-on ignition for DT. Generalizing this to side-on igniting solid state density proton-Boron-11 (HB11) arrives at the surprising result that this is one order of magnitude more difficult than the DT fusion. This is in contrast to the well known impossibility of igniting HB11 by spherical laser compression and may offer fusion energy production with exclusion of neutron generation and nuclear radiation effects with a minimum of heat pollution in power stations and application for long mission space propulsion.

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Block Ignition Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) for Space Propulsion

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Fusion energy without radioactivity: laser ignition of solid hydrogen–boron (11) fuel

Fusion energy without radioactivity: laser ignition of solid hydrogen–boron (11) fuel

Threshold for laser driven block ignition for fusion energy from hydrogen boron-11

Nonlinear force driven plasma blocks igniting solid density hydrogen boron: Laser fusion energy without radioactivity

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