Major breakthrough in China's cutting-edge nuclear energy technology
Source: Phoenix Securities. Date: 2015-04-09.
Recently, with the successful assembly of two huge semi-annular body vacuum chamber components in the assembly workshop of Hefei Keyang Electric Physical Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd., the development and construction of the components of each system of China's first large-scale anti-field pinch magnetic confinement fusion experimental device is comprehensive. Complete, enter the final overall installation and commissioning stage of the device.
The anti-field pinch magnetic confinement fusion experimental device (KTX, the Chinese University of Science and Technology for short) is a large-scale device construction project supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology's "National Magnetic Confinement Fusion Energy Development Research Project". The project was undertaken by the Key Laboratory of Basic Plasma Physics, School of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, and was jointly constructed by the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hefei Keyingdian Physical Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Anti-field pinch is another type of toroidal magnetic confinement fusion device different from Tokamak and stellar configuration, and it is an important platform for advanced magnetic confinement fusion configuration research. The most important feature of anti-field pinch is that the magnetic field of the confined plasma is generated by the current inside the plasma. It has the advantages of pure ohmic heating to achieve fusion ignition conditions, high-quality power density, etc. It is a candidate solution for the configuration of future magnetic confinement reactors.
Controllable nuclear fusion is the forefront of science and technology in the contemporary world. Because of its extremely demanding technical requirements, it is still in the pre-research stage so far, and there is a saying in the academic world that "nuclear fusion will always succeed for 25 years." At present, the world ’s largest research force is magnetically constrained nuclear fusion, and the Tokamak device is considered to be the most promising type of controllable nuclear fusion power generation device structure in the future.
The KTX (Chinese University of Science and Technology) link in China has entered the final overall installation and commissioning stage. This result may not change the status quo of "controllable fusion is still 25 years away", but it means that the gap between China and the world's leading countries in this field has narrowed. In the field of controlled nuclear fusion, China and the United States are currently the two countries with the largest investment. According to public reports, there are currently 16 large-scale nuclear fusion experimental devices known in China, second only to the United States and 28. There are five named Russia.