Streamlined nuclear fusion reactors are now possible with a major breakthrough

Efforts to produce a functioning nuclear fusion reactor led a scientist to create a formula that would make their construction more profitable.

While some researchers assume that nuclear fusion is imminent, we have not yet developed a reactor that can successfully replenish the power of the sun for a useful life. However, a physicist at Princeton's Plasma Plasma Laboratory (PPPL) has developed a mathematical technique that simplifies the design of complex magnetic coils in sinuous machines that host fusion reactions.

Using this new technique, these machines, called stellarators, could be considerably cheaper, which would bring closer the nuclear fusion.

Caoxiang Zhu, lead author of the research published on Nuclear Fusion, said this advance could allow physicists to know in advance when the shapes and locations of coils could damage the plasma magnetic confinement. In addition to reducing costs, he added, it would also reduce the construction time of a reactor.

Complex alternative

The twisted cruller – shaped stellarators are an alternative to donut – shaped tokamaks that are more commonly used by scientists looking to replicate fusion on Earth to obtain a virtually inexhaustible source of energy to produce l '-. electricity.

What gives an advantage to stellarators is that their very stable plasma production is less susceptible to the harmful disturbances that tokamaks can undergo. However, their complex design has made them harder to work until now.

For example, the coils of a stellarator must be built and arranged around a vacuum chamber with high accuracy. Otherwise, the bumps and ripples resulting in the magnetic field could allow the plasma to escape and destroy the reactor.

In the past, scientists have used computer simulations to better determine the locations of coils. However, according to Zhu, this approach requires "massive computing resources and man-hours".

Zhu's technique is based on what is known as a Hesse matrix, a mathematical tool that allows researchers to determine which disturbances to control or avoid, and which ones you can ignore.

The new technique could help scientists design better stellarators, Zhu added. This could help to identify an optimal arrangement of reels that no one had considered before.