Great Country Academician

Taking Yu Mu along, Xu Chuan quickly rushed towards the gate of the experimental reactor park.

At the gate of the base, several special super-heavy trucks were parked there.

Xu Chuan stepped forward quickly and checked around the vehicles.

The inside is indeed the ICFR heating antenna delivered from Luyang, and it is a complete set.

For the Lixiao demonstration reactor project, these ICRF heating antennas can be adapted to the demonstration reactor after modification.

After all, the equipment itself is built according to the standards of the demonstration reactor project.

It was originally sold to ITER in exchange for a sum of money and some technology, but Huaguo has withdrawn from ITER now, and it is impossible to sell these things to ITER again.

On the one hand, Europe probably won't buy it either. After all, buying Huaguo's equipment now is regarded as an enemy on the road to controllable nuclear fusion.

On the other hand, even if they buy it from Europe, they will not be able to sell these ICRF antennas to ITER again.

After all, compared with other Western countries, Huaguo is relatively ahead in microwave heating, and selling them is also considered an enemy.

"I really didn't expect him to send this thing over."

On the side, Peng Hongxi, who also received the news, looked at the ICRF heating antennas in these super-heavy trucks with some emotion.

Xu Chuan was a little curious and asked, "Old Peng knows its specific performance parameters?"

Hearing this, Peng Hongxi nodded and said, "Actually, it is derived from the microwave heating antenna technology I designed before."

"After I retired, Chen Ming continued to lead the people in Luyang to continue research on microwave heating technology. The blue is better than the blue. Today's ICRF antenna heating technology is also well-known in the world."

"As for the set in front of you, I really know its performance parameters. After it was developed, Lao Chen showed me some information."

"This set of ICRF antenna heating equipment is designed to provide continuous wave heating for plasma with long pulses up to one hour. The frequency range is 30~100MHz, the transmission line impedance is 50Ω, and the heating power is 1.5~3MW"

"Aside from these conventional parameters, the most critical core point is that the vacuum feeder of this ICRF antenna device is a redesigned crank-shaped vacuum feeder, which can withstand ultra-high voltages of up to 120KV."

Hearing this, Xu Chuan's expression was a little moved.

It has to be said that judging from the performance parameters mentioned by Academician Peng Hongxi, the performance of this ICRF heating antenna is quite powerful.

The ion cyclotron heating (ICRF) antenna is one of the most critical components of controllable nuclear fusion. It plays the role of igniting and raising the reactor chamber and maintaining the temperature in the reactor chamber.

In the ICRF heating antenna, the vacuum feeder is the core key point. On the one hand, it must withstand extremely high current and voltage, and on the other hand, it must also play a role in isolating vacuum and hot nitrogen.

During the operation of the ICRF antenna, the voltage between the inner and outer conductors connected to the feeder can be as high as 45KV. Therefore, increasing the breakdown voltage of the feeder and reducing its dielectric loss is one of the key technologies in the design of the feeder.

Moreover, improving the withstand voltage capability of the feeder can reduce the occurrence of sparking events and effectively improve the safety of the ICRF antenna and even the overall device.

The 120KV withstand capacity can be described as a real black technology.

It should be known that most countries capable of researching controllable nuclear fusion have a vacuum feeder with a voltage withstand capacity of around 50KV. And the set in front of me has more than doubled.

It was really a great gift for Chen Mingji to send him this set of equipment.

It not only saves the time of his own making, but also makes it more excellent.

After arranging for the engineers to move the equipment into the engineering base, Xu Chuan and Peng Hongxi returned to the office.

After brewing a pot of tea, the two had a rare moment of leisure.

When talking about the Luyang EAST fusion device and hearing that Chen Mingji resigned from all positions and left the field of controllable nuclear fusion, Peng Hongxi also sighed a little.

"To be honest, Lao Chen's ability is still very good, otherwise he would not have brought the EAST device to the top three in the world on the road of tokamak installation in these years. The development of Luyang is actually very good in his hands. Yes, it's just that the progress seems a bit slow when I meet you, a monster."

"If he can stay and bring the engineers from Luyang to continue to study some problems, I believe he can still make some achievements."

Xu Chuan smiled, took a sip from his teacup, and said, "Everyone has his own choice, let him do as he pleases."

After a pause, he continued: "After he chatted with me a while ago, I can understand his decision now."

"Controlling the Luyang Controllable Nuclear Fusion Project, I have been a leader for so long. If I ask him to come to my side to assist me in realizing controllable nuclear fusion, I'm afraid I can't do it."

"Moreover, for the field of controllable nuclear fusion in China, even if I make these achievements with Li Xiao, it may not be convincing to everyone. After all, there is no real controllable nuclear fusion technology now."

"Sitting there, he might be dragged by someone to hang a banner with a tiger skin. In that position, he is sitting on the fire."

"He probably wants to use his retirement to let me completely take over the banner of the domestic controllable nuclear fusion field. For him, like us, he is a person who is thinking about the realization of controllable nuclear fusion technology."

"Although we have had some misunderstandings due to some differences in concepts, but these are not a big deal."

Hearing this, Peng Hongxi sighed, and said softly: "I just feel that it's a pity. The hope of controllable nuclear fusion technology is right in front of us, so what if we last for a while?"

"Decades of ups and downs have come, why retire now?"

Xu Chuan thought for a while and said, "Probably because he has always held this dream and hoped to see the realization of controllable nuclear fusion, he chose to retire."

Hearing this, Peng Hongxi didn't speak any more, but there was some regret on his face.

This is probably the most appropriate way.

It's just that from his point of view, it's a little different.

After all, the two have worked together for so many years.

For him, another colleague who has gone through ups and downs and bumps all the way, and started to struggle since the founding of the People's Republic of China, has left this field.

Although the other party deviated from the track due to arrogance or thoughts in his heart, in the end, he used his own departure to return the track to the right track.

"By the way, regarding the issues of tritium self-sustainment and tritium retention, I have designed a set of plans these days, Mr. Peng, can you take a look?"

After drinking a cup of tea, Xu Chuan got up, took out a stack of manuscript paper from the drawer, and handed it over.

Seeing that they were talking about business, Peng Hongxi also put down the teacup in his hand, took the manuscript paper with a serious face, and started to read it.

After waiting for about ten minutes, he put down the manuscript paper, looked at Xu Chuan with shining eyes and asked, "Molten salt technology of lead-lithium mixture? Interesting, how did you come up with this."

In controllable nuclear fusion technology, tritium self-sustainment is a systematic problem, but tritium self-sustainment is a key issue in maintaining reactor operation.

Since the 14MeV fusion neutrons and transmutation products hydrogen and helium produced during the operation of the fusion reactor will produce various defects in the tritium breeder, these defects will affect the permeation and retention behavior of tritium, so the transport of tritium in the breeder is a Very complicated process.

At present, in the research process of controllable nuclear fusion in various countries, there are generally two routes for tritium self-sustaining technology.

They are solid proliferators and liquid proliferators.

From the name, it can be understood.

The solid multiplication agent is made of high-temperature resistant ceramic balls made of lithium silicate, lithium titanate, lithium zirconate, lithium oxide and other materials, and then placed in the cladding of the first wall, and then tritium is produced by high-energy neutron impact.

When working, the 14MeV high-energy neutrons produced by the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction will react with the lithium in the pellet to generate tritium, and then the generated tritium will be extracted by purging helium at a suitable temperature.

The disadvantage is that the solid-state tritium multiplier has low tritium multiplication capacity due to the low mass fraction of lithium, and a high-cost neutron multiplier needs to be specially arranged.

This is its main disadvantage.

The liquid multiplier uses lithium-containing liquid metals, such as lead lithium LiPb, lithium Li, or molten salts such as fluorolithium beryllium FLiBe, etc. as multiplication materials.

Liquid proliferators have many advantages over solid proliferators.

For example, the high tritium value-added ability, the liquid lithium Li atom content is high, and the multiplier itself contains neutron multiplier elements such as lead Pb and beryllium Be, so there is no need to add neutron multipliers.

Or complex geometries and adaptability, which are liquid after all and can fill each cladding without complicated machining processes.

Or there is no life limit, and the liquid material can be exported at any time for flow replacement without shutting down and so on.

However, liquid lithium materials also have huge defects in the self-sustaining process of tritium.

In a magnetic confinement fusion reactor, high-temperature plasma is confined by a high-strength magnetic field.

The strong magnetic field not only confines the plasma, but also has a negative impact—causing the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect.

When a conductive fluid moves in a magnetic field, it will generate an induced electromotive force, which in turn generates an induced current. The interaction between the induced current and the magnetic field generates a body force in the opposite direction, that is, the Lorentz force, and then hinders the fluid movement, that is, the MHD effect occurs.

The MHD effect not only seriously affects the flow characteristics of liquid metal, but also greatly increases the corrosion of structural materials.

In addition, it will also cause changes in turbulent flow characteristics, suppressing turbulent flow affects the heat transfer performance of the fluid.

If these problems are not solved, the problems caused by the MHD effect of liquid lithium will cause great harm to the development of the fusion reactor liquid cladding and the safety of the entire fusion reactor system.

In this respect, it is far less usable than a solid-state proliferation loop.

Therefore, at the Lixiao Research Institute, although there are two research routes for solid-state and liquid lithium proliferation, the main direction is still on solid-state proliferation.

Because of safety, it will not affect the controllable nuclear fusion reactor.

However, in the manuscripts that Xu Chuan handed over, he saw the hope of solving the problem of liquid lithium proliferating tritium.

PS: Ask for a monthly pass.