D-T Beam Fusion Reactor

Abstract

The Beam Fusion Reactor (BFR) is based on a field-reversed configuration and confined ion energies in the range of hundreds of keV. Repetitively pulsed, intense ion beams sustain the ion distributions and provide current drive. In the BFR the ion orbit size is comparable to the dimensions of the confined plasma and the expectation is for classical transport of the particles and energy. Based on technologies that readily exist, or nearly so, a D-T fueled BFR could be assembled in a compact configuration that is scaleable in terms of its output energy as well as to the advanced fuel regime. In the simplest case the mean azimuthal velocities and temperatures of the two ion (fuel) species are equal and the plasma current is unneutralized by electrons; the resulting distribution functions are thermal in a moving frame of reference. Reactor kinetic calculations are based on the Vlasov-Maxwell equation, including a Fokker Planck collision operator and all sources and sinks for energy and particle flow. The quality factor for this system is projected to be: Q ≡ P fusion /P bremsstrahlung = 104.