Proposal of a progressive thermalization fusion reactor able to produce nuclear fusions with a mechanical gain superior or equal to 18 - Rev B
Creators: name: LINDECKER Patrick
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Fusion
Reactor
Electricity production
Spatial propulsion

description: For the published article (in Rev. A) in the "Energy and Power Engineering" journal: https://doi.org/10.4236/epe.2022.141003

In the standard fusion reactors, mainly tokamaks, the plasma, in thermal equilibrium, is heated up to an energy of about 15 keV with complicated devices. At the present time, the mechanical gain obtained by these reactors is below 1. In the other hand, there are colliding beam fusion reactors, as for example the « Fusor », for which, the particles are initially injected radially. The plasma not being neutral in these reactors, the space charge limits the number of fusions to a very small number. Consequently, for this reason and for others reasons, the mechanical gain is extremely low.

The proposed reactor is also a colliding beam fusion reactor using initial directed beams, but D+/T+ ions are injected in opposition, with electrons, at high speeds, so as to form a neutral beam. All these particles turn in a magnetic loop in form of figure of “0” (“racetrack”). The plasma is initially non-thermal but, as expected, rapidly becomes thermal, so all states between non-thermal and thermal exists in this reactor. The main advantage of this reactor is that this plasma after having been brought up near to the optimum conditions for fusion (around 68 keV), is then maintained in this state, thanks to low energy non-thermal ions (≤15 keV). So the energetic cost is low and the mechanical gain (Q) is elevated (≥18). There is no net plasma current inside this reactor, so no disruptive instabilities and consequently, the working is continuous. Moreover, the main plasma control by the particles injectors (I and U) is relatively simple. This reactor has been partly checked on a simulator.

Erratum (Rev B): the standard way to heat the plasma, so as to stabilize the plasma temperature, is to use devices  such as neutral atoms/molecules injection, but also radio frequencies (ECRH or ICRH), etc. This set of plasma heating systems is replaced, in this document, by two opposite beams of D+/T+ ions and electrons injected by ions and electrons beam guns, even if in reality these beams could not reach the plasma core as the magnetic confinement would prevent it. Now the injection of neutral atoms/molecules at high energy would be more or less equivalent because these particles are mainly ionized at the center of the plasma and give their kinetic energy in excess to the plasma. The advantage is that these neutral particles are not confined by the magnetic field, so they can enter into the plasma core. Moreover, two opposite beams permit to avoid a net plasma current. However, in that case, the kinetic energy is mainly carried by the sole D+/T+ nuclei, not by the electrons. So in this document it must be implicitly considered that:•    The T+/Electrons injection is in fact an injection of neutral Tritium which is going to be ionized in T+/Electrons before reaching the center of the pipe.•    The D+/Electrons injection is in fact an injection of neutral Deuterium which is going to be ionized in  D+/Electrons before reaching the center of the pipe.Now, for the calculations, considering two ionized beams instead of two neutral beams would not change the results, even if the difference of kinetic energy between ions and electrons would logically change the behavior of such particles in the plasma. However, the physics used in this paper being relatively simple, it is not targeted accurate results but orders of magnitude.