British company First Light Fusion became the first commercial clientwho received permission to experiment at the installation Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). The First Light Fusion company has developed a unique pressure “accelerator” to launch thermonuclear reactions, and experiments at an American installation made it possible to test the platform at previously unattainable pressure levels.
Image Source: Sandia
The principle of launching a thermonuclear reaction on the First Light Fusion platform is based on creating conditions around the fuel target in which lighter atoms overcome Coulomb repulsion and merge to form heavier ones, which releases a lot of energy. In tokamaks, for example, for this purpose a temperature of over 100 million °C is created. But you can go the other way, and in particular, do without magnetic confinement. For this purpose, inertial retention was invented, when extreme pressure is created around the fuel, for example, by one or another impact.
The Z Machine (Z-Pinch) installation at Sandia Laboratories is considered the most powerful pulsed electrical installation of its type in the world. In Europe there is also a similar device – Machine 3, but it is much weaker in characteristics. The British needed to reach a higher level to confirm the characteristics of the proprietary pressure “accelerator”. With a peak power of 80 trillion watts, the US installation uses an electromagnet to launch projectiles at higher speeds than any other installation in the world.
First Light Fusion received or purchased the rights to three shots. In total, the Z Machine at Sandia Laboratories makes about 200 shots per year. First Light’s successful first experiment set a new pressure record for quartz at the Sandia facility, increasing it from 1.5 terapascals (TPa) to 1.85 TPa, while preserving the samples and providing conditions for the necessary measurements. The tests confirmed the validity of the theoretical models used and the design of the prototype ignition system.
Interestingly, about a year ago, First Light Fusion signed a design and build agreement with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to house the new Machine 4 demonstrator. Construction was scheduled to begin in 2024 at the Culham campus in Oxfordshire. The installation is expected to begin operation in 2027. It is unlikely that gaining access to experiments on the Z Machine in the USA canceled the previous project. Harnessing thermonuclear energy is a tedious and time-consuming task. It is customary to move towards this, checking every step.
Let us add that the Machine 4 installation from First Light Fusion will transfer energy to the fuel target due to the impact of a quartz projectile accelerated to a speed of 60 km/s. When hitting a target, the company’s unique “velocity accelerator” will accelerate the impact products to 200 km/s and focus them on the fuel target in the form of spherical waves squeezing the target. The combination of kinetic and laser impact promises to significantly reduce the energy consumption of a fusion plant. However, Machine 4 will also be a test of concept, from which it will be very, very far from a real thermonuclear installation.
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2024-03-08 11:23:00
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