Towards compact and efficient nuclear reactors

迈向紧凑高效的核反应堆

• 批准号: EP/Y022157/1
• 负责人: Timothy Coombs
• 金额: $ 157.26万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY022157%2F1
• 关键词: Towards; compact; efficient; nuclear; reactors

There is an ever pressing need to develop clean and green methods for energy generation. Fusion is an important part of the solution, in principal at least providing close to unlimited high grade energy with a close to zero carbon footprint. Fusion is at a cross-roads, the physics is well understood but the engineering still needs a great deal of effort to bring about practical fusion. High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) have recently emerged as a serious contender for achieving this goal. The purpose of this project is to overcome the major difficulty of AC losses which are a perennial problem with HTS. HTS are only lossless under DC conditions, this will not be the case with a fusion magnet which will be ramped up and down. In a reactor there are coils which need to be ramped rapidly this will induce AC losses. AC losses are a perennial problem for superconductors which needs to be solved. Once it is solved a huge range of applications will become practical, not only fusion but, for example electric flight, even more powerful wind generators and many more. We aim to solve this problem.

迫切需要开发清洁和绿色的能源生产方法。聚变是解决方案的重要组成部分，原则上至少提供接近无限的高品位能源和接近零的碳足迹。聚变正处于十字路口，物理学已经很好理解，但工程仍然需要付出巨大的努力才能实现实际的聚变。高温超导体（HTS）最近成为实现这一目标的有力竞争者。该项目的目的是克服高温超导长期存在的交流损耗这一主要难题。 HTS 仅在直流条件下是无损的，而聚变磁铁则不会出现这种情况，聚变磁铁会上下倾斜。电抗器中的线圈需要快速升温，这会引起交流损耗。交流损耗是超导体长期存在的问题，需要解决。一旦这个问题得到解决，大量的应用将变得切实可行，不仅包括核聚变，还包括电动飞行、更强大的风力发电机等等。我们的目标是解决这个问题。