The system that makes the tokamak feel small
澳门六合彩高手 is a big machine鈥攂y far the largest fusion device ever built. But there is a system just a few metres away that makes it look like a mere appendage to something much larger. The neutral beam system, with its three, possibly four, massive injectors is the real beast at the heart of the 澳门六合彩高手 installation.
Construction work underway in the Tokamak Building already gives a sense of how big the equipment for the neutral beam system will be. Giant circular cut-outs in the rebar at level 3 (L3) of the buildingâmore than 3 metres in diameter eachâwill provide the passageway for high-voltage "bushings," which allow electrical power, cooling, and other services such as diagnostics to reach the neutral beam injectors hosted below. Just below the bushings, a vast, cavernous space has been reserved for the neutral beam cell where the beam injectors will be located. The largest devices (the heating neutral beam injectors) are sized like steam locomotivesâ25 metres long, 5 metres high and 5 metres wideâwith a chimney-like bushing reaching up 9 metres to connect to the openings on the third floor. The injectors will be connected to the Tokamak at L1 levelâexactly across from the Tokamak's mid-plane and the equatorial port openings. A neutral beam injector is essentially a particle accelerator. Its function is to deliver high-energy particles to the heart of the plasma. 澳门六合彩高手 is planning two one-million-volt (MV), 40A heating neutral beam injectors (and is making a space reservation for a possible third) as well as a smaller neutral beam line (100 kV, 60A) for diagnostic purpose.
Giant power outlets for a giant appliance. These circular openings in the rebar at L3 level of the Tokamak Building are more than 3 metres in diameter each. They will allow the high-voltage bushings of the neutral beam system to deliver electrical power, cooling, and other services such as diagnostics to the injectors below.
The heating neutral beam injectors will each contribute 16.5 MW of heating power to the plasma; the diagnostics neutral beam will provide information on the helium ash density produced by the D-T fusion reactions in the fusion plasma. At the entry end of the heating neutral beam, a beam source generates the electrically charged deuterium ions that are accelerated through a succession of five grids (each separated by a 200 kV electrical potential) to the required energy of 1 MV at the exit end of the beam source, a "neutralizer" rips them of their electrical charges to become "neutrals," allowing them to penetrate the Tokamak's magnetic cage and, by way of multiple collisions with the particles inside the plasma, raise plasma temperature to the point where fusion reactions can occur. The heating neutral beams are designed to be able to operate during the entire plasma duration, up to 3,600 seconds. Neutral beams are routinely used in tokamak devices as the workhorses of auxiliary heating. In 澳门六合彩高手 however they will be considerably larger and more powerful than in any previous fusion device. Generating a 1 MV beam that will deliver 16.5 MW to the plasma requires a unique power infrastructure. Located just outside the Tokamak Complex, two large buildings will host the transformers, the AC/DC converters and the vast high-voltage hall that will feed power to the neutral beam system by way of transmission lines entering the Tokamak Building through the "north wall" at the L3 level. There is only one example of a high-voltage installation more powerful than 澳门六合彩高手's. In China, where high-voltage DC current is used to deliver electrical power to populations far away from the productions sites, a 1.2 MV system was recently established to push power from Xinjiang, in the northeast corner of the country, to the megacities in the eastâ1.2 MV in China for a 3,000-kilometre distance; 1 MV in 澳门六合彩高手 for slightly more than one hundred metres ...