Patent
1974-06-10
1980-01-08
Behrend, Harvey E.
176 1, 176 9, G21B 100
Patent
active
041826515
ABSTRACT:
A nuclear reactor that burns hydrogen bomb material 6-lithium deuterotritide to helium in successive microexplosions which are ignited electrically and enclosed by this same molten material, and that permits the conversion of the reaction heat into useful electrical power. A specially-constructed high-current pulse machine is discharged via a thermally-preformed highly conducting path through a mass of the molten salt .sup.6 LiD.sub.1-x T.sub.x (0<x<1). In the resulting dense, hot plasma filament primary nucleons are formed by field-accelerated fusion collisions. These hot particles initiate suprathermal multistepped propagating fission-fusion avalanches that heat the plasma by their own released energy up to thermonuclear temperature. The plasma is confined inertially and magnetically. Neutrons escaping sideways are utilized to breed tritium in the surrounding liquid blanket material, for participation in the next pulse. At the end of the current pulse and magnetic confinement the filament desintegrates and the nuclear fire is extinguished in the surrounding cold matter. The energy set free is insufficient to convert the blanket into a hot plasma in which chain reactions could propagate and escalate. The liquid blanket also serves as a neutron radiation shield. The shock wave is attenuated in it by a curtain of rising deuterium bubbles. The heat shock is buffered by partial melting of the external solid crust. The reaction heat is carried by the liquid metal of the external cooling jacket to the heat exchanger of the associated turbo-generator. Every few seconds, a new pulse can take place.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3214342 (1965-10-01), Linhart
patent: 3313707 (1967-04-01), Amsler
patent: 3748475 (1973-07-01), Shatos et al.
MATT-1050, 8/74, pp. 526-529.
Technology Review, 12/76, pp. 20-24, 32, 33, 39, 42, 43.
WASH-1267, 7/73, pp. 3-10.
NSENAO-58, no. 2, 10/75, pp. 107, 108, 119, 120, 162-165.
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