A Comparison Between the Burn Condition of Deuterium-Tritium and Deuterium-Helium-3 Reaction and Stability Limits
Abstract
The nuclear reaction of deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion by the usual magnetic or inertial confinement suffers from a number of difficulties and problems caused by tritium handling, neutron damage to materials and neutron-induced radioactivity, etc. The study of the nuclear synthesis reaction of deuterium-helium-3 (D-3He) at low collision energies (below 1 keV) is of interest for its applications in nuclear physics and astrophysics. Spherical tokamak (ST) reactors have a low aspect ratio and can confine plasma with β≈1. These capabilities of ST reactors are due to the use of the alternative D-3He reaction. In this work, the burn condition of D-3He reaction was calculated by using zero-dimensional particles and power equations, and, with the use of the parameters of the ST reactor, the stability limit of D-3He reaction was calculated and then the results were compared with those of D-T reaction. The obtained results show that the burn conditions of D-3He reaction required a higher temperature and had a much more limited temperature range in comparison to those of D-T reaction.
- Publication:
-
Zeitschrift Naturforschung Teil A
- Pub Date:
- February 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1515/zna-2014-0134
- Bibcode:
- 2015ZNatA..70...79M
- Keywords:
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- Burn Condition;
- D-<SUP>3</SUP>He Fusion Reaction;
- D-T Fusion Reaction;
- Spherical Tokamak Reactor;
- Stability Limit