Space Solar Power Review. Vol 8 Nums 1&2 1989

thermal conversion of an Exyder reactor is competitive, however. For high power systems, the Exyder reactor with thermal conversion shows great promise with specific powers approaching 1 MWe/Mg for Pt-2; 10 GWe. For systems larger than 10 MWe, the radiator mass becomes the limiting factor. 6. Conclusions This study makes no pretense to engineering accuracy. The purpose has been to suggest that a high-luminosity reactor featuring self-colliding beams is capable of utilizing so-called ‘advanced' fusion fuels, of which the most promising is D-3He. Using semi-qualitative arguments, mass scaling relations are derived for the various components of a nuclear space power system. The migma reactor is seen to be limited to ~ 1/3 MW of raw power per cell, and so the number of cells required for a large system demands a very long and massive ten-tesla solenoid. The Exyder approach is conductive to magnetic fields that decrease as power output is raised, and utilizes a single Exyder cell for all reactor sizes. This leads to a very light reactor. It would appear that the requirements of moderate areal flux and adequate radiation area mandate unfavorable scaling properties for direct converters. For this reason, any Exyder space power system over 10 MWe will probably feature only thermal conversion, despite the fact that about half the total output is in the form of charged particle energy. REFERENCES [1] Norwood, J. Jr. (1979) Intermediate Classical Mechanics (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, Inc.), pp. 161-162. [2] Powell, C. et al. (1988) Nucl. Instrum, and Meth., A271, 41. [3] Macek, R. & Maglich, B. (1970) Part. Accel., 1, 121. [4] Al-Salameh, D. et al. (1985) Phys. Rev. Lett., 54, 796. [5] Jukes, J. (1968) Rep. Prog. Phys., 31, 305. [6] Burkhardt, H. (1962) Nucl. Fus., 2, 1. [7] Tamor, S. (1988) Nucl. Instrum, and Meth., N21\, 37. [8] Norwood, J. Jr. (1988) Nucl. Instrum, and Meth., N2T\., 89. [9] An aneutronic power plant for use in space, FEC-82-41, Nov. 1982. [10] Santarius, J.F. et al. (1988) Critical issues for SOAR, UWFDM-753, Univ, of Wisconsin, January. [11] Blewett, J.P. (1988) Nucl. Instrum, and Meth., A271, 214. [12] Bartberger, C.L. (1950) J. Appl. Phys, 21, 1108.

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==