Measuring Fusion Reactions in Real Time Helps in Design of Unique Spiral Shaped Accelerator
To produce the same kind of
clean energy that powers the sun and the stars, scientists and researchers have long tried to build nuclear fusion devices that would work here on Earth.
A recent design from research and development firm Sorlox, Inc. uses a unique spiral shaped chamber to compress fuel into a plasma state, which then ignites and
generates huge pulses of energy.
To build an optimal device, the company needed to measure — in real time — data such as the
currents and voltages of the electromagnetic “cage” used to control the plasma as it floats past the accelerator walls.
This posed a
design problem because the extremely hot and highly electrically charged plasma reacts so quickly it could potentially be difficult to measure. In developing its device, the firm used a
Genesis high-speed data acquisition system (DAQ) from HBM.
As a review, recall that
nuclear fusion is a process that differs from fission, the type of atomic reactions harnessed by existing nuclear power plants. Basically, fission produces energy by fracturing atoms, while fusion produces energy through miniscule acts of atomic coupling. In the sun’s core, thermonuclear temperatures reach fifteen million degrees C, high enough to cause protons to slam together and unite. Each time this happens, a tiny amount of mass is lost.
As
Einstein’s famous equation E=MC2 states, the mass is released in the form of energy. The released energy is explosive and totals huge amounts — thousands of times the amount it took to bind the atoms together in the first place.