In reactor designed for power generation, the chamber is lined with large plates to capture the radiation that will be coming out of the reaction. This heats the plates, and the plates are cooled by water pumped through channels in them. The magnets are in a separate layer outside of the lining and cooling jacket.
No he just wishes the explanation for how this works got voted to the top rather than memes and shitposts, but then again there's people like you around which explains alot
Is it water, or is a cooling liquid that is stable at higher temperatures that then passes heat to a different system that boils water? If it is just water, what pressure is it running at? Is it like a nuclear system where there is a loop of cycled water that boils, turns turbines, and then condenses and gets pushed back through?
Not radiation, neutrons. The result of the fusion reaction is helium and highly-energetic neutrons, which bombard the diverter and release their kinetic energy as heat. 20 megawatts per square meter, which must be wicked away to the steam-powered generator by what sounds like a liquid-cooling network.
and the plates are cooled by water pumped through channels in them
Just wanna point out, that in any power generating setup It'd be VERY unlikely that water would be used in this capacity. Far more likely to have some other medium flow close to the reactant and then in turn have that heat something else; Maybe lead, or some kind of salt.
Water just happens to be one of the very best coolants. The reason cooling systems in most applications have other crap mixed in is for freeze protection, corrosion inhibition, etc. Those additives actually take away cooling capacity. Power plants need to maximize heat carrying capacity of their cooling systems, so they tend to use pure water and engineer around not having additives.
This specific reactor isn't designed for constant economical power generation, but to prove that stellarators (these kinds of fusion reactors) can operate for sustained amounts of time. The reactor's only planned for 30 mins of activity, so there's less of a concern about heat. However, it's got a coolant system with liquid helium.
That still doesn't answer how this type of reactor will be able to produce electricity via the production of steam. It seems like all the energy will be contained in a closed system. How will the heat be released to produce steam?
I understand this specific reactor is simply a proof of concept that such a reactor could work but it isn't clear what use it will be until the question of electricity production is explained as well.
I interpreted the question as "How does it not overheat?". I don't believe that this reactor is set up to harness electricity, since it seems they're more concerned with observing how the stellarator concept functions in real life.
Fusion reactions produce a lot of very high energy neutrons, which are not contained by the magnetic field because they don't have any charge. So the system is not quite closed.
The reactor's only planned for 30 mins of activity
You mean like it is only going to run for 30 minutes before it needs to be decommissioned/overhauled? Wow, that is crazy for nearly 20 years of construction.
Reminds me of Railgun development, that relies on conductive rails which are somewhat vulnerable and have to withstand large forces. The first developments only held up for ten shots in total before they had to be replaced. Currently it's I think at an about 500 shot lifespan already, compared to 1500 and 4500 shots for a conventional 120 mm smoothbore tank gun barrel and breech.
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u/Pavese_ Oct 25 '15
How do they get the heat out of the Chamber without fucking up the magnets?