Nuclear fusion

Most speculative potential applications

[Todo: fill this topic skeleton]

Types of fusion

pursuable:

• envirounmentally friendly
• low cost
• relatively small and lightweight

Magnetic enclosure

• reduction of weight
• limit for magnetic fields unclear (severe)
• thermal power densities -> refractory materials

Inertial fusion

• macroscopic vibration damping
• neutral particle carriage acceleration
• highly symmetric enclosement (thermal and quantum mechanical uncertainty)
• low reflectivity of hydrogen - minimal isolating plasma shell thickness (severe!)
• fast cavity cleanout
• fast radiation seals
• carriage particle accelerators
• small scale Laser particle accelerators

General notes

• Thermal throughput bottleneck thermal energy transmission
• self repair of thermal and radiation damage
• isotope sorting (e.g. tuning fork method) & closed loop nuclear waste recycling
• usage for spacecraft propulsion possible? - earth or space only?
• Implications of Liouville's theorem or "why nuclear mechanosynthesis don't work" - detour over thermal step unavoidable
• surface power/(heat flor) density limit - capsule based thermal energy transport (asymmetric figure eight loop in tokamaks?) may move it further down to more tacklable values.
• consistent high temperature stable designs SiC (H-passivation?)

Related

• APM and nuclear technology