Inertial Fusion Energy: Optimising High Energy Density Physics in Complex Geometries

惯性聚变能：优化复杂几何形状中的高能量密度物理

• 批准号: EP/X025373/1
• 负责人: Simon Bland
• 金额: $ 782.6万
• 依托单位: Imperial College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FX025373%2F1
• 关键词: Inertial; Fusion; Energy; Optimising; Density

Climate change driven by burning coal or oil, and fuel supply insecurity caused by international conflicts highlight the need to develop safer, cleaner ways of generating electrical power. Renewables and nuclear fission both play an important role here, but each has limitations. Wind and waves are subject to natural variations, while fission reactors require careful, long term management of dangerous waste.One attractive alternative for the future is fusion energy, harnessing the same nuclear reactions that power the sun. To create fusion on Earth we "burn" an isotope of hydrogen (deuterium, 0.03% of the mass in the world's oceans), a vast, easy to access fuel supply. The deuterium is combined with tritium (another hydrogen isotope) and under extremes of temperature, pressure and density these can fuse to form Helium and in doing so release huge amounts of energy. The reaction generates no greenhouse gasses, and is relatively clean with very short lived, easy-to-handle waste material, however the conditions required to create fusion are very difficult to make. There are several methods for getting to Fusion conditions, including using large magnets to trap a hot plasma over long timescales, or utilising an array of lasers to suddenly heat and compress a small pellet of frozen fusion fuel, causing it to implode in a spherically symmetric fashion. This last method, called Inertial Confinement Fusion, recently had a breakthrough in results, with the world's most complex, expensive laser, being utilised to heat a precisely engineered fusion target to the point of causing 'ignition' where heat generated within the target was briefly enough to sustain the continued burn of fusion fuel. However, with present laser technology it would be challenging to scale such a method to energy production.In new experiments at First Light Fusion, a company based in Oxfordshire, a different approach to fusion is being developed. Instead of lasers hitting the fuel capsule from all sides, a single high speed projectile is used to hit a specially machined metal and plastic target from just one side. Inside the target, shockwaves from the impact of the projectile are shaped and concentrated, compressing and heating an enclosed volume of Deuterium-Tritium fuel. In April 2022 First Light Fusion released their first results, demonstrating that this method provides a promising route that warrants further research.Our project brings together three universities, Imperial College, Oxford and York in partnership with First Light Fusion and a new company dedicated to AI techniques - Machine Discovery - to form a Partnership that will explore the challenges in the First Light Fusion approach. Working together we will study the flow of heat, matter and radiation in First Light Fusion's targets which have complex interfaces between vastly different material pressures, from over a billion atmospheres to room pressure, and material temperatures, from millions of 0C to those lower than liquid nitrogen. By exploring these exciting conditions and learning how heat, radiation and matter flow in the targets, we hope to be able to better simulate how these targets behave. This will enable First Light Fusion to design much higher yield experiments that could lead the way to 'on grid' power production. The high yield experiments will require projectiles moving at many 10s of km/s which will be achieved by using huge bursts of electrical current - 50 million amperes! - and the magnetic fields this creates to launch large strips of metal to these ultra-high velocities. The £500million generator to make such high currents is presently being designed and will be built in the UK, helping our nation maintain its position as a world leader in fusion technology and industry.

燃烧煤炭或石油导致的气候变化，以及国际冲突造成的燃料供应不安全，突出表明需要开发更安全，更清洁的发电方式。可再生能源和核裂变在这方面都发挥着重要作用，但都有局限性。风和海浪会受到自然变化的影响，而裂变反应堆需要对危险废物进行仔细的长期管理。未来一个有吸引力的替代能源是聚变能源，利用与太阳相同的核反应。为了在地球上产生核聚变，我们“燃烧”氢的同位素（氘，占世界海洋质量的0.03%），这是一种巨大的，容易获得的燃料供应。氘与氚（另一种氢同位素）结合，在极端的温度，压力和密度下，它们可以融合形成氦，并在此过程中释放出巨大的能量。该反应不产生温室气体，并且相对清洁，具有非常短的寿命，易于处理的废料，但是产生聚变所需的条件非常难以实现。有几种方法可以达到聚变条件，包括使用大型磁铁在长时间内捕获热等离子体，或者利用激光阵列突然加热和压缩一小块冷冻聚变燃料，使其以球对称的方式内爆。最后一种方法，称为惯性约束聚变，最近在结果上取得了突破，世界上最复杂，最昂贵的激光器，被用来加热一个精确设计的聚变目标，以引起“点火”，其中目标内产生的热量足以维持聚变燃料的持续燃烧。然而，以目前的激光技术，将这种方法推广到能源生产中是具有挑战性的。在位于牛津郡的First Light Fusion公司的新实验中，正在开发一种不同的聚变方法。不是激光从各个方向击中燃料舱，而是使用单个高速射弹从一侧击中特殊加工的金属和塑料目标。在目标内部，弹丸撞击产生的冲击波被成形和集中，压缩和加热封闭体积的氘氚燃料。2022年4月，First Light Fusion发布了他们的第一个结果，证明这种方法提供了一种有前途的路线，值得进一步研究。我们的项目汇集了三所大学，帝国理工学院，牛津大学和约克大学，与First Light Fusion和一家致力于人工智能技术的新公司-机器发现-合作，形成一个合作伙伴关系，将探索First Light Fusion方法中的挑战。我们将共同研究First Light Fusion目标中的热量，物质和辐射的流动，这些目标具有非常不同的材料压力之间的复杂界面，从超过十亿个大气压到室内压力，以及材料温度，从数百万摄氏度到低于液氮。通过探索这些令人兴奋的条件并了解热量，辐射和物质如何在目标中流动，我们希望能够更好地模拟这些目标的行为。这将使First Light Fusion能够设计出更高产量的实验，从而为“并网”发电开辟道路。高当量的实验将需要以每秒数十公里的速度移动的射弹，这将通过使用巨大的电流爆发来实现-5000万安培！- 以及由此产生的磁场将大块金属带以超高速度发射出去。这台耗资5亿英镑的发电机目前正在设计中，并将在英国建造，帮助我们的国家保持其在聚变技术和工业方面的世界领先地位。