Chapter 365 Six Seconds at a Time?

This laboratory is an "industry" under the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Max Planck Society, but this kind of global research is definitely not just done by the Institute of Plasma Physics.

Lu Zhou has seen the list of cooperative research units, and the names of those research units alone are enough to fill a page of A4 paper. If the principle of authorship of papers here is the same as that of CERN, as long as everyone involved in the research has a share, I am afraid that the first few pages of the paper will have to be vacated for signatures.

However, compared with this huge cooperative research group, the stellarator as the research object is much "smaller".

Following in the footsteps of Professor Kreber, Lu Zhou and Professor Klitzing came to the radiation protection isolation room, and finally saw the whole picture of Helix 7-X.

Quietly located in the center of the radiation-proof isolation room, the stellarator, about 3.5 meters high and 16 meters wide, looks like the Millennium Falcon of Han Solo, the captain of the smuggling cargo ship in "Star Wars".

It's just that it has just experienced a big war, and it is docked in the "Star Port" at the moment, and it can only be repaired by technicians.

Approaching the past, Lu Zhou can clearly see that equipment of various sizes is densely covered on the surface of the device, and countless cables spread from the equipment to all directions, seemingly entangled in a disorderly manner.

"This thing... how much does it cost?"

"It is said to be more than one billion euros." Looking at this device, Professor Klitzing, standing next to Lu Zhou, sighed with some envy, "If the research and development costs are included, it may be an astronomical figure."

The funding of the Institute of Plasma Physics is the envy of colleagues in physics.

Obviously it is also the Max Planck Society, and it is obviously also the Institute of Physics, but the funding of the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics is much less than theirs.

I am envious, and Klitzing also understands this situation.

After all, this kind of multi-country cooperative research and development project is not only funded by the German government, but all countries in the world are throwing money into it.

"Is it so expensive?"

Lu Zhou clicked his tongue.

Originally, he was still a little swollen thinking about whether to build a supercomputer to study and study, but now it seems that it is more realistic to build a supercomputer...

"Okay, don't worry about the money, the budget is not something we need to worry about," Professor Creber said with a pat on Lu Zhou's shoulder, "The final adjustments have been completed, and we are about to start the experiment. Now we Go to the observation room."

...

Unlike my experience working at CERN, the Hadron Collider operates at a depth of 100 meters from the beginning to the end. Unless an engineer with a professional qualification certificate, it is impossible to enter the interior of the pipeline.

What is presented to the theoretical physicists is just the data on the screen and the image after further processing.

Now, in front of Lu Zhou, in addition to the detectors connected to various parts of the stellarator, he can even observe the internal conditions of the orbit with the naked eye through something similar to a camera.

In the observation room, all staff members are on standby.

"The track tightness test is normal!"

"Fill with protective gas!"

"The shielding gas is filled, and the pressure measurement procedure begins!"

"..."

"The superconducting critical temperature is reached, and the circuit is fully charged!"

"The operation status of the magnetic field is confirmed to be normal!"

After listening to the reports of each research group, Professor Kleiber immediately issued an order to start the experiment.

"ignition!"

At the moment when the magnet current reaches 15kA, the thyristor switches off quickly, and the magnet current is transferred to the first-stage energy-dissipating resistor, generating a voltage of 2400V, causing the gas in the vacuum chamber to be broken down, thereby generating plasma.

Lu Zhou saw through the screen, a layer of light red membranous substance formed a twisted ring in the twisted circular orbit.

To his surprise, the sight was quite beautiful.

"...The temperature of these plasmas will exceed hundreds of millions of degrees after reaching the peak, which is almost equivalent to the interior of stars. There is no material that can block this scorching energy, even if you search all over the solar system, it is impossible." The same station Watching in front of the screen, Professor Klitzing said softly beside him.

Lu Zhou asked casually, "How did the stellarator do it?"

"Relying on a distorted magnetic field," explained Professor Klitzing, "we use a magnetic field to confine them, confine them in a limited space, and keep them away from the inner wall of the orbit. But even so, it still can't last long..."

While the two were talking, the experiment had entered the most critical moment.

With the secondary energy dissipation resistor, the switch of the thyristor is closed, and the voltage drops to 1000V. At the same time, the current rises to the peak value, and the entire track is suddenly filled with scorching light. Even through the screen, Lu Zhou feels a little dazzling.

However, this light did not last long.

In less than six seconds, the light suddenly slackened and disappeared from the screen like a extinguished flame.

The stellarator in operation gradually stopped, but the observation room quickly became busy like boiling water.

Standing not far from the two of them, Professor Kleber ordered the researchers in the observation room: "Collect data immediately, check the status of the equipment, and act quickly!"

At the same time, the door of the radiation protection isolation room opened, and staff wearing radiation protection suits quickly walked into the isolation room with various tools and began to check the status of the track from the physical level.

Looking at Professor Kleiber who took off his helmet, Lu Zhou was slightly stunned.

"Is this the end?"

"That's right, it's over," said Professor Kleiber, who threw his helmet on the table and walked over with a smile, "Now it only discharges for a few seconds at a time, the longest time I remember was about 6 seconds , at the shortest time, only a few picoseconds."

Lu Zhou had a speechless expression on his face.

"...I thought its performance would be a little more amazing."

Professor Kleiber grinned: "Theoretically, the discharge time can be made longer, but the divertor target plate has not been installed yet, and if the discharge time is too long, it may cause excessive heat load to damage the first wall. Materials. After another two years, the installation of the water-cooled divertor is completed, and you can try 30 minutes of pulse discharge.”

The discharge time here refers to the time during which the basic magnetic field configuration can be maintained in one discharge, which is the so-called pulse time of one discharge.

30 minutes is the goal set by Spiral Stone 7-X at the beginning of its design.

If it can be done, the impact on the entire nuclear fusion project will undoubtedly be huge, and it will even affect the international community's choice of the mainstream technology route for nuclear fusion engineering.

After all, the current mainstream choice is the tokamak device, but the tokamak device has fallen into a bottleneck in terms of discharge time.

At present, the longest discharge record is held by Huaguo's "EAST" at 102 seconds, which almost marks the ceiling of the "discharge time" of the technical route of the tokamak device. If you want to raise this ceiling by an inch, you will A dear price must be paid.

Looking at this device, a thoughtful expression appeared on Lu Zhou's face.

Suddenly, a whimsical idea popped up in his mind.

If the system is used to price the magnetic confinement nuclear fusion technology, how many points do you need for a blueprint of a mature stellarator? -

(The cold is better when I wake up today, I will try to break out tomorrow, I can’t go on like this. In short, let’s set a flag first...)