Enhanced safety and performance improvements have been made to the liquid-wall HYLIFE reactor, yielding the current HYLIFE-II conceptual design. Liquid lithium has been replaced with a neutronically thick array of flowing molten-salt jets (Li[sub 2]BeF[sub 4] or Flibe), which will not burn, has a low tritium solubility and inventory, and protects the chamber walls, giving a robust design with a 30-yr lifetime. The tritium inventory is 0.5 g in the molten salt and 140 g in the metal of the tube walls, where it is less easily released. The 5-MJ driver is a recirculating induction accelerator estimated to cost $570 million (direct costs). Heavy-ion targets yield 350 MJ, six times per second, to produce 940 MW of electrical power for a cost of 6.5 cents/kW[center dot]h. Both larger and smaller yields are possible with correspondingly lower and higher pulse rates. When scaled up to 1934 MW (electric), the plant design has a calculated cost of electricity of 4.5 cents/kW[center dot]h. The design did not take into account potential improved plant availability and lower operations and maintenance costs compared with conventional power plant experience, resulting from the liquid wall protection. Such improvements would directly lower the electricity cost figures. For example,more » if the availability can be raised from the conservatively assumed 75% to 85% and the annual cost of component replacement, operations, and maintenance can be reduced from 6% to 3% of direct cost, the cost of electricity would drop to 5.0 and 3.9 cents/kW[center dot]h for 1- and 2-GW (electric) cases. 50 refs., 15 figs., 3 tabs.« less

HYLIFE-II: A Molten-Salt Inertial Fusion Energy Power Plant Design — Final Report

All the basic and physical aspects of ion-driven confinement fusion are timely reviewed. Both light- and heavy-ion beams are stressed out. The fundamental components : accelerating structure, beam, target and reactor vessel are thoroughly presented. A particular emphasis is given to the three crucial interfaces : beam-reactor, beam-target and target-reactor. Ion-plasma experiments of closely related concern are also investigated at length.

Inertial confinement fusion driven by intense ion beams

Recent progress in the conceptual design of inertial fusion reaction chambers and power plants is reviewed. A discussion of expected operating parameters and a brief historical perspective are provided to organize the rich array of chamber and driver concepts. The technical feasibility of several reaction chamber concepts is discussed, along with technical issues that require future analysis, experiment, and development. Where these chambers have been integrated into a power plant design, the characteristics are described. Finally, requirements on the future development of inertial fusion reactor technology are discussed.

An overview of inertial fusion reactor design

An overview is presented of the general status of materials research and development activities related to the needs of controlled thermonuclear fusion reactors. Emphasis is placed on materials res...

Materials Technology for Fusion: Current Status and Future Requirements

High-temperature, low-vapor-pressure liquid jets can provide neutron shielding for inertial fusion energy (IFE) target chambers. To minimize pumping power, free liquid jets must be located close to the target to reduce the total liquid volume required for shielding each fusion shot. For heavy ion drivers compact liquid geometry provides additional benefits by reducing focus-magnet stand off distance. The disruption of the liquid by targets involves complex fluid mechanics, as does the subsequent droplet clearing and pocket regeneration. The ranges of time, length, and energy-density scales in IFE target chambers are extreme compared to most engineered systems. Scaling, discussed in detail here, can identify optimal approaches to study and model liquid response, and minimize experimental distortion. More broadly, the systematic categorization of IFE phenomena by duration and location is shown to provide a natural format for selecting experiments to study IFE phenomena ranging from beam transport to chamber activation.

L.A. Glenn

Papers

Dynamic Loading of the Structural Wall in a Lithium Fall Fusion Reactor

On the motion following isochoric heating of concentric liquid annuli

Divergent impulsive crossflow over packed columnar arrays

Transport processes in an inertial confinement fusion reactor

A 2-D model of plasma-jet interaction in the hylife inertial confinement fusion reactor