SBIR Phase II: A Plasma Heat Engine for Efficient Production of Fusion Energy

SBIR 第二阶段：用于高效生产聚变能的等离子体热机

• 批准号: 2110396
• 负责人: Richard Nebel
• 金额: $ 99.57万
• 依托单位: TIBBAR PLASMA TECHNOLOGIES INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-12-15 至 2024-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2110396&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Plasma; Heat

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to produce a fusion-based engine in a system that is small, simple and inexpensive. The ultimate system will produce power that is as clean as renewable energy. Since the system is small and has low radiation, it also has applications for manned space flight. This new engine could enable more direct and shorter flights to other planets, which minimizes the exposure of astronauts to the radiation encountered in outer space.This SBIR Phase II project proposes to continue the companies research on using a harmonic well to produce fusion by particle kinetic energy, rather than general thermal energy. The proposed concept utilizes a new heat engine technique that always maintains the plasma distribution function in thermodynamic equilibrium. In the proposed fusion system, a plasma is created in a specially designed harmonic well and then induced to form into two counter-oscillating spinning rings. When the two rings collide at the center of the well, the particle velocities are high enough to cause fusion. This phase of the project will increase the energetics of the device. The project will move up to deuterium, a fuel which is twice as heavy as hydrogen (the current fuel) and has a much larger cross-section for fusion. The proposed approach is expected to make the harmonic well sufficiently energetic to produce deuterium-on-deuterium fusion by increasing the natural oscillation frequency of the well to give ion collision speeds of about one million meters per second. The project expects to be able to detect the neutrons produced by the fusion, demonstrating aneutronic fusion.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是在小型，简单且价格便宜的系统中生产基于融合的引擎。最终系统将产生与可再生能源一样干净的电源。 由于该系统很小并且辐射较低，因此它还具有载人太空飞行的应用。 这款新引擎可以使飞往其他行星的更短途和更短的飞行，从而最大程度地减少了宇航员的暴露于外层空间遇到的辐射。该SBIR II期项目建议继续使用公司进行研究，以通过谐波孔进行谐波来产生粒子动力学融合能量，而不是一般的热能。提出的概念利用了一种新的热发动机技术，该技术始终保持热力学平衡中的等离子分布函数。在拟议的融合系统中，血浆是在特殊设计的谐波井中创建的，然后诱导成两个反振荡的旋转环。当两个环在井中的中心碰撞时，粒子速度足够高以引起融合。 该项目的这一阶段将增加设备的能量学。该项目将升至氘，氘，该燃料的重量是氢（当前燃料）的两倍，并且具有更大的横截面以进行融合。预计所提出的方法将使谐波充分充分的能量能够通过增加孔的自然振荡频率来产生依特里群氘，从而使离子碰撞速度每秒约为100万米。该项目预计能够检测到融合的中子，表现出动态融合。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响评估审查标准，被认为值得通过评估来获得支持。