Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

Office of the Dean of the Institute of Advanced Studies.

Looking at Yang Xu as he walked in the door, the ark stopped the pen in his hand and threw an interrogated gaze at him.

“Did you get the results? ”

A USB disk was removed from his pocket and placed on the Ark's desk. Yang Xu opened his mouth and said: “The information is inside. ”

The ark continued, “Where's the original? ”

Yang Xu: “Already backed up to the database... Is there a problem? ”

Ark: “Destroy it. ”

Yang Xu nodded slightly, but did not ask why.

“Okay.”

Watching the office door close again, the Ark attached the USB disk to the laptop, tapped on the folder, and looked closely at an image.

After coming out of the underground lab yesterday morning, he took several pieces of debris from the arcuate double layer structure between the fuel tank and the temperature exchanger, took them to Yang Xu for infrared spectral peak analysis, and took pictures of transmission electrons.

Based on the situation on a few pictures, his speculation was indeed corroborated.

Although the fragmented nanoceramic composite has become brittle and difficult to deduce from its original structural properties, from the carbon residue inside it, it can basically be concluded that it is a composite material that is anisotropic to heat conduction and resistant to high temperatures.

Especially for sampling of the inner layer material, hydrogen element residues can be noticeably observed in the defective structures inside several samples by means of transmissive electroscopes.

As far as the ship knows, the probability is only two, which could result in such a result.

In one case, these hydrogen elements are made of neutron decay through the material.

In another case, the high-energy proton beam directly breaks through the inner wall and remains inside the material.

Looking at the basic distribution of hydrogen elements and swelling structures in the interior of the material in shallow areas, and comparing the penetration of neutrons and protons, the ark can basically infer that the probability of these swelling structures is mainly due to the latter.

In that case, that Hall thruster wreck lying in his underground lab, at least 90% probable, was fused with nuclear energy.

And the probability of using nuclear fuel is that the fusion reaction releases protons of tritium and helium!

“It's a fusion battery! ”

Confirmed this speculation, staring at the pictures on the screen and looking closely at the ark, the eyes filled with excitement.

Not only that, he can even roughly deduce the technical route this thing is taking based on a limited number of clues.

For example, based on the confined structure and the damage to the inner wall of the reactor, this small fusion reactor is probably disposable.

That is, the fuel is integrated directly into the core and the entire core is discarded directly after use.

It sounds a little wasteful, but in fact it is the most viable approach.

Many complex designs such as liquid lithium neutron recovery systems can be directly omitted without considering the bombardment of high-energy proton beams and the radiation damage to materials caused by small amounts of neutrons resulting from tritium reactions, as well as the economic benefits of long-term operations.

This not only reduces engineering difficulties, but also saves a lot of valuable space.

After all, a square metre on a spacecraft is incomparable to the five exits of the center of the universe.

As for shielding materials, heating components, heat exchange systems, and observation systems for monitoring the operation of the core, these more expensive designs can be integrated into the engine itself, together with the generator sets, as “battery slots” for installing the core.

If you think so, the engineering difficulty of this disposable fusion power supply structure should not be too high...

Of course, it's not outrageous, just relative to mature second-generation controllable fusion technology.

If this discardable design philosophy of "run out and throw” were used to design second-generation controllable fusion reactors, the engineering difficulty would probably not be very high, or even simpler than a STAR-2 demonstration reactor using DT fusion, although the cost of generating electricity would be unacceptably high.

It's like using space fuel to power civilian installations...

“The design philosophy is to control engine power by integrating fuel inside the core and controlling the space size and fuel consumption rate of the intermediate reaction chamber through the design of a double-layer structure… So this core should not be a continuous ignition, but a pulse ignition. ”

“But the fusion battery on that Hall thruster wreck is probably not a magnetic constraint, it should be another technical route. ”

Although he found a structure similar to a superconducting magnet on the wreckage of that Hall thruster, it was clearly not large enough to restrain hundreds of millions of degrees of hot plasma. And in space, that superconducting magnet is in direct contact with the ionization chamber, and the real function is probably to provide alternating magnetic fields for the Hall propulsion unit...

So it should be an inertial constraint?

Thinking about it, the canoe with a pen writing a drawing on the draft paper brightened its eyes.

Pulse ignition, inertial constraint...

The technical route is clear!

Restricted by the excitement in his heart, he rubbed the paper on the table into a bunch, stuffed it in his pocket, then took out his phone, flipped the address book and dialed a number.

The bell rang for three seconds and soon passed, Secretary Toyota's voice coming from across the street.

“Hello?”

Ark: “It's me. ”

Mapletree smiled and said, "Professor Lu, is there something wrong? ”

Ark: “How is the restructuring of the STAR-2 Demonstration Reactor project team going? ”

When he heard the question, a sudden expression appeared on Mapletree's face and said.

“The placement of employees, the inventory of assets and the definition of property rights have basically been completed, the relevant documents have been submitted to the SASASAC and are now awaiting inspection by the working group in Shanghai. If there are no major problems, East Asian electricity could be split from the STAR-2 project team by one week at the latest. ”

Speaking of which, Mapletree smiled and said: "I wonder if Professor Lu is ready to board? If you're not ready, I can be two days late. ”

Get in the car?

The ark stunned slightly, but for a moment and a half did not react to the meaning of this sentence.

But it was clearly not the time to talk about it, and he did not go into depth and asked about the reorganization of the STAR-2 project team before continuing.

“All you have to do is keep an eye on the East Asian Electric Company and follow the instructions from the top. I'm calling today mainly to say another thing, and I have a new research project on my side that needs to be drawn from the technicians in the original STAR-2 project team. ”

Mapletree didn't ask much: "Okay, give me your name. ”

The Ark thought about it and went on to say, "There may be a little more names, it may not be clear on the phone, who exactly I need, and I'll send a list to your work email address. ”

When I heard that, Mapletree was slightly stunned.

“Need a lot of people? ”

Ark: “Not much, maybe ten. ”

That's not much?

The heart laughed bitterly and Mapletree asked carefully.

“May I ask what the project is? ”

The ark thought about it and said.

“About miniaturization of controllable fusion. ”

Mapletree: “…???? ”