Chapter 596: Fusion Battery Project
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Twenty minutes later.
The car parked outside the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study entrance.
Sheng Xianfu arrived at the same time as Lu Zhou, who had just got down from the car.
When he saw Lu Zhou, he walked over to him.
“What a coincidence, I was about to give you a phone call.”
“Thank God you didn’t call me, I’ve been on the phone non-stop.” Lu Zhou smiled and said, “How have you been?”
“I’ve been alright, just a bit too bored. I don’t like being bored. I’ve been working hard my entire life.” Sheng Xianfu jokingly said, “What do you think? I’m pretty loyal, right? As soon as I heard that you wanted me to come, I left my director job and immediately came over to you. Since I’m so loyal to you, can you tell me what the project is?”
Lu Zhou paused for a second and looked at him with a surprised expression. He asked, “The State Administration for National Defense did not tell you what the project is?”
Sheng Xianfu shook his head.
“The person who talked to me told me it’s a secret, he didn’t tell me the specifics.”
“Is it that serious?” Lu Zhou smiled and cleared his throat. He said, “Oh well, it’s fine. The reason you came here today is so that we can talk about the project. Come with me.”
The two men passed through the main entrance of the Institute for Advanced Study and arrived at the Institute of Physics. They walked through the corridor and walked into a conference room.
There were already ten other people in the conference room.
Also, there was a whiteboard with a plastic cloth covering it, which would probably be used for the conference.
Sheng Xianfu briefly looked at the people sitting in the conference room.
He recognized some of them, like Professor Li Changxia from Yuhua University and Academician Li Jiangang from the Lu Yang Physics department. There were also people who he didn’t know personally but had heard of.
For example, the white-haired old man who was wearing a wool vest, he was Academician Yu Jiannan, from the fluid physics department at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
His name was on the list of designers for the “Julong No.1” laser ignition device that the people from the Chinese Academy of Sciences had built.
Compared to the Sheng Guang fusion ignition device, the Julong No.1 was far superior in terms of performance and nuclear technology. It contained 1,440 pulse capacitors, 720 field-distortion switches, 24 laser-triggered gas switches, and 12 high-performance lasers. This was on the level of the United States’ National Ignition Facility machine.
Nowadays, laser ignition and inertial confinement fusion had been heavily used by the military. Julong No.1, which was built by the Shenguang fusion ignition team, was well aware of this. They designed the machine for nuclear weapons testing. And whether it was the miniaturization of laser ignition or the integration of laser arrays, this machine was cutting-edge technology.
Sheng Xianfu had only heard of this old man’s name, he never expected a chance to see him.
There were also some strangers who he didn’t know or heard of before. However, since they were sitting here, they obviously weren’t common people, they were probably just not in the field of plasma physics and controllable fusion engineering.
Sheng Xianfu couldn’t help but feel emotional.
Being elected as an academician came with a certain amount of prestige in academia, and his status far exceeded that of normal scholars.
In any type of research institute, academicians were the leaders. Research groups were also led by academicians. The highest level of scholars were the people in the Changjiang Scholars Program, then came the top researchers, then came the middle-level researchers, the noob researchers, then the master’s students, and even the undergraduate students.
This team, however, only consisted of academicians.
Other than Professor Lu, there weren’t many people in China that had the power to form such a team…
When Sheng Xianfu remembered that he had actually hesitated to join this project, he was embarrassed of himself.
Even if no one would blame him for not joining the project, he would be the one to receive the losses.
After all, this kind of opportunity was once in a lifetime.
If he firmly grasped this opportunity, it would greatly benefit his career as well as increase his chances of becoming an academician.
Lu Zhou looked at the people sitting in the room and smiled, “Apologies for making everyone wait, I just came from campus.”
Academician Li Jiangang smiled and said, “It’s fine, we’ve only just arrived. Let’s skip the small talk, we have no idea why we’re suddenly being summoned here. We don’t even know what the project is, let’s start talking about the project first.”
Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Okay then, I won’t waste anyone’s time with small talk.”
Lu Zhou composed himself and walked toward the whiteboard in the conference room. He then reached out and took off the plastic cover.
The moment he took it off, at least half of the people in the conference room were stunned, while the other half were expressionless.
Sheng Xianfu, who didn’t know anything about the project, was stunned.
However, he wasn’t only just shocked.
He was amazed as well…
“This is…”
Sheng Xianfu’s voice was trembling as he looked at the whiteboard with disbelief. He opened his mouth but words couldn’t come out.
“The miniaturization of fusion reactors, or fusion batteries.” Lu Zhou looked at him and smiled. He then said cheerfully, “They’re the same thing anyway.”
Lu Zhou didn’t care about everyone’s surprise. He cleared his throat and continued, “I have already calculated the technical feasibility of the miniaturization of controllable fusion technology. I will send you guys the relevant theses. Of course, in a few days, you will get to read it in the Journal of Nuclear Physics. So, I won’t go into details here.
“The reason I invited everyone over is mainly to have a simple meeting and assign everyone their research tasks.”
Lu Zhou pointed at the whiteboard with a laser pointer and continued, “This road map on the whiteboard is the general research plan of the entire project. The content might be slightly abstract, but I think it is quite comprehensive. If you can’t understand it, feel free to ask me.”
Sheng Xianfu, who had just recovered from his initial shock, raised his hand and said, “I have a question…”
Lu Zhou: “Please go ahead.”
Sheng Xianfu carefully looked at the road map on the whiteboard and frowned. He asked, “Why is it inertial confinement fusion? We are more experienced in magnetic confinement.”
“Good question.” Lu Zhou smiled and said, “The reason why magnetic confinement isn’t chosen, is because the magnetic field overflow will interfere with the operations of the precision components in the aircraft. The second reason is that magnetic confinement requires a much larger space.
“We can’t put a thousand square meter superconducting magnet on the plasma engine. It’s not realistic, and it’s not necessary.
“In terms of maintaining the fusion reaction, we will use fast ignition. We do not need to keep the fusion reaction stable for a long time. We only need the reaction to happen quickly.”
Li Jiangang frowned and said, “Fast ignition? Ignoring the advantages and disadvantages of magnetic confinement and inertial confinement fusion, if the liquid lithium neutron recovery system is removed, how do you plan on offsetting the neutron beam radiation damage?”
“I will talk about this later.”
Lu Zhou paused for a second before he continued, “The design of the nuclear battery can be roughly divided into three sections. The first section is the nuclear core and fuel component. I will be responsible for solving this section. The second section is the power generator connected to the core. I will hand this part over to the team at China National Nuclear Corporation.”
Academician Wang Zengguang: “Are we using a ferrofluid electric energy generator?”
Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “Uncertain. It depends on what the reactor is, and what it needs.”
He paused for a second before continuing, “As for the third section, this is the fusion ignition device for the reactor. Since we are planning on using inertial confinement fusion and fast ignition, I personally prefer using laser ignition as the heating device. Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility of microwave heating.
“The research in this section is very important. I hope this will be led by Academician Li Jiangang and Academician Yu Jiannan. You guys will research two technical paths, laser ignition, and microwave ignition.”
Yu Jiannan thought for a bit and said, “I’m okay with this, but the laser ignition device occupies quite a lot of space. If you want to put that thing on a spacecraft, it might be a little difficult.”
“I understand.” Lu Zhou nodded and said, “That’s precisely why we need to do experiments.
“The budget given by the State Administration for National Defense is plentiful. If anyone has any good ideas, feel free to share them. We have enough funds to research any problems we want.”