Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

This laboratory is the “industry” of the Maple Society Institute of Plasma Physics, but this global nature of research is certainly not being done by just one unit of the Institute of Plasma Physics.

The Ark has read the list of cooperating research units, and the names of those research units alone are enough to fill a page of A4 paper. If the principle of signature of the paper here is the same as that of CERN, as long as the researchers are involved, they are afraid that the first pages of the paper will have to be released for signature.

Compared to this large cooperative research group, however, the object of the study is much more "compact”.

Following Professor Crabb's footsteps, the Ark and Professor Cleveland arrived in the radiation isolation room and finally saw the full picture of the spiral 7-X.

Situated quietly in the middle of the radiation isolation chamber, about 3.5 metres tall and about 16 metres wide, it looks like the Millennium Falcon of Han Solo, captain of the smuggling cargo ship in Star Wars.

It's just been through a great war, and it's docked in "Starport” right now, and it can only be repaired by technicians.

Approaching the past, it is clear to the ark that devices of all sizes are densely placed on the surface of the device, and countless cables spread from the equipment in all directions, seemingly entangled in chaos.

“How much does this thing cost? ”

“It is said to exceed one billion euros.” Looking at this device, Professor Clearing, standing next to the ark, was somewhat envious, "I'm afraid it would be an astronomical number if R&D costs were added together. ”

The funding of the Institute of Plasma Physics is particularly enviable to our physics colleagues.

It's the Maple Society, and it's the Institute of Physics, but the Institute of Condensed Physics is far less expensive than they are.

I envy it, and Cleveland understands it.

After all, such multi-country collaborative R&D projects are funded not only by the German Government, but by the countries of the world.

“So expensive? ”

The ark smashed its tongue.

Originally he thought about getting one to come over and do research, but now it seems that it's more realistic to do the over-computation...

“Well, whatever the cost, the budget is not something we need to worry about," Professor Krabs said with a smile, patting the shoulder of the ark, "the final commissioning is done, and we're about to start experimenting, and now we're going to the observation room. ”

……

Unlike the experience of working with CERNs, a Hadron Collider has always operated 100 metres deep underground and has no access to the interior of the pipeline unless it is a professionally qualified engineer.

What's in front of theoretical physicists is just the data on the screen and the further processed images.

And now, in front of the ark, in addition to the detectors attached to various parts of the simulator, he can even observe the inside of the orbit with a naked eye through something similar to a camera.

Inside the observation room, all staff are waiting.

“Orbital sealing test is normal! ”

“Fill the protective gas! ”

“When the protection gas is filled, start the pressure test procedure! ”

“ …… ”

“Superconducting critical temperature reached, the circuit is fully charged! ”

“Magnetic field operation condition confirmed! ”

Immediately after listening to the reports of the study groups, Professor Kreber gave an order to initiate the experiment.

“Ignite! ”

As soon as the magnet current reaches 15kA, the transistor quick switch is switched off, the magnet current is transferred to the first stage energy consumption resistance, generating 2400V voltage, causing the gas in the vacuum chamber to be punched through, thereby producing plasma.

Through the screen, the ark saw a light red membranous material forming a twisted circle in a twisted circular orbit.

Surprisingly, it was quite beautiful.

“… these plasma temperatures will break hundreds of millions of degrees after reaching their peak, almost equivalent to the interior of the star. No material can stop this burning energy, not even if you look all over the solar system.” Also standing in front of the screen, Professor Clearing said softly.

The ark asked casually, "How did the star imitator do that? ”

“Relying on distorted magnetic fields," Professor Clearing explained, "we use magnetic fields to bind them to a limited space, keeping them away from the inner walls of the orbit. But even so, it won't last long..."

The experiment has entered its most critical moment as the two speak.

With the secondary energy consumption resistance, the opening and closing of the transistor, the voltage drops to 1000V, while the current rises to a peak, the entire track is suddenly filled with burning light, even across the screen ark feeling some pungency.

However, the light did not last long.

In less than six seconds, the light suddenly loosened, like a strangled flame, and disappeared into the screen.

The working imitator gradually stopped, but the observation room was quickly busy, like boiling boiling boiling water.

Standing at a distance of two people, Professor Kraber ordered the researchers in the observation room: "Collect the data now, check the condition of the equipment, and move quickly! ”

Meanwhile, the door to the radiation isolation room opened and staff in radiation suits quickly entered the isolation room with various tools and began to physically check the condition of the orbit.

Looking at Professor Kleber, who took off his helmet, the ark stunned slightly.

“That's it? ”

“That's right, it's over,” said Professor Krabs, who threw his helmet on the table, laughing from the side, "and now it only takes a few seconds at a time to discharge electricity, and the longest I can remember is about six seconds, the shortest, just a few picoseconds. ”

The look on the ark's face was silent.

“… I thought it would perform even more amazingly. ”

Professor Kraber grinned and laughed: "Theoretically, it can be discharged longer, but now that the filter target plate is not installed, excessive discharge time may result in excessive thermal loads damaging the material on the first wall. In another two years, when the water-cooled filter is installed, a 30-minute pulse discharge can be attempted. ”

The discharge time here refers to the time that the basic magnetic field topography can be maintained in a single discharge, or the pulse time of a so-called primary discharge.

30 minutes is the goal set by the Spiral 7-X at the beginning of the design.

If that were possible, the impact on the entire nuclear fusion project would undoubtedly be enormous and would even affect the international community's choice of mainstream technology routes for nuclear fusion engineering.

After all, the current mainstream choice is the Tokamak device, which is caught in a bottleneck in the discharge time.

At present, the longest discharge record holds 102 seconds of China's "EAST", which almost marks the ceiling of the Tokamak device's technical route on "discharge time”, which has to be expensive to raise by an inch.

Looking at the device, a thoughtful expression appeared on the face of the ark.

Suddenly, a strange thought sprang up in his mind.

If the system were to price magnetically constrained nuclear fusion technology, how many points would a technologically mature imitator drawing cost?

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(Wake up today and catch a better cold. I'll try to explode tomorrow. I can't go on like this. Anyway, put a flag first...)