Chapter 96: That Beam Of Light
Xinghai Nuclear Fusion Laboratory.
Although it is located in the Gobi Desert, it is not far from the Xinghai Aerospace Base, and it has not been in an idle state all the time.
As early as several months ago, under Fan Ren’s guidance, several classified projects started construction here and began entering working state.
Unlike the initial idea of developing it independently, the laboratory now houses a large number of official scientists from Great Xia.
As the main investor, initiator, and technical lead of this laboratory, Fan Ren has absolute rights over this laboratory.
The first batch of Ordinary Crystal Stone Ore collected from the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the Moon has arrived at the laboratory, and nearly 3 tons of Tri-Titanium Alloy have been successfully refined.
After spending nearly 70 billion, Fan Ren finally obtained this ultra-strong metal that emits silver light and has extremely high strength.
In the nuclear fusion process, the enormous energy produced, if not prepared with safety and effectiveness in advance, a small reactor alone would be enough to raze this laboratory to the ground.
The only advantage is that in this process, there is not much radioactive substance present.
This is also why Fan Ren had to wait until the Tri-Titanium Alloy was obtained before conducting the overall nuclear fusion project research.
With this ultra-strong metal used as the container wall, the enormous energy produced by the fusion reaction will be firmly confined inside the container, with no risk of overflow.
Even so, at Fan Ren’s request, the entire team tirelessly designed three layers of protection devices including the container wall to ensure the experiment was foolproof.
This batch of Tri-Titanium Alloy was quickly processed into the shape of the container wall as he envisioned and assembled completely.
At the same time, Fan Ren was surprised to discover that with the Tri-Titanium Alloy, High-Voltage Radio Technology also saw another qualitative improvement, which could basically completely replace the messy wire harness in the reactor, thereby greatly reducing the complexity of the reactor.
By this point in the experiment, the deuterium and tritium fuels needed for the reaction provided by Great Xia were also injected into the target pellet in the reactor.
For the ignition method, Fan Ren chose the mature inertial confinement laser ignition technology currently in the industry.
This technology irradiates the periphery of the target pellet with high-intensity lasers, thereby generating high-temperature, high-pressure plasma on its surface.
At this time, this plasma will rapidly expand outward, thereby producing a strong reaction force.
Then, relying on this reaction force, the outer layer material of the target pellet is rapidly compressed inward, squeezing the internal nuclear fuel inward to form an extremely high temperature and pressure environment, thereby triggering the nuclear fusion reaction.
Fan Ren stopped and, at his request, a group of scientists whose average age was much older than his tirelessly conducted safety tests on the reactor again and again.
Safety is particularly important.
In his vision, the controllable nuclear fusion reactor will gradually become miniaturized in the future and enter ordinary people’s lives, thereby replacing petroleum, this special product that can currently only exist on Earth.
After a period of time, all the scientists in the laboratory gathered in the hall, their gazes converging on the reactor in the huge display screen.
Today is the day of the first ignition test.
Actually, by this point, these scientists who have been immersed in the high-energy field for many years could already foresee that the experiment result would not have much possibility of failure.
Not only them, many people with relevant knowledge know that the biggest obstacle restricting the progress of controlled nuclear fusion is simply the lack of a container wall that can safely enclose the reactor.
On the contrary, the hydrogen bomb is a particularly good example.
It does not need to consider this point; when designing the hydrogen bomb, it only needs to consider how to put as much deuterium and tritium fuel as possible in the warhead, in order to produce as much explosion energy as possible.
And now, this material has appeared, and Fan Ren has also proposed an imaginative idea: during the refinement of Tri-Titanium Alloy, incorporate high-strength carbon nanotubes into it to further improve the hardness of the container wall and its high-temperature resistance performance.
The moment they saw the data of this new material, they could roughly determine that the possibility of experiment success had greatly increased.
It can be said that if the performance data of the container wall made of this metal is not falsified, then this test will surely succeed.
There are no other possibilities.
“Relevant personnel clear the area; the first controllable fusion reaction will begin in five minutes.”
Fan Ren’s low voice echoed through the laboratory.
Soon, the engineers responsible for the final inspection withdrew.
He looked at the time and silently counted down in his heart.
“Begin.”
With Fan Ren’s order, the engineers at the workbench firmly and swiftly began a series of operations.
“Ignition countdown 10, 9, constraint laser activation.”
In his view, fierce high-temperature plasma gradually rose from the target pellet inside the reactor.
“Close the outer container wall.”
Immediately after, with the operator’s command, the outermost container wall of the reactor—the last layer of the three-layer container wall and the final safety lock—was completely closed.
Once this layer of container wall begins to show signs of rupture, the entire laboratory could be destroyed due to the enormous energy produced by the fusion.
Fan Ren patted his head, drove away this sudden strange thought, and couldn’t help but chuckle wryly.
Sure enough, every man has a big bomber attribute deep in his heart.
“Record: Plasma reaches predetermined high temperature and pressure, begins expanding outward. Shut down constraint laser.”
As Fan Ren’s voice fell, the operator quickly operated according to the command.
The scientists present could clearly feel the enormous electricity consumed when the constraint laser was activated; with its shutdown, the laboratory’s power supply returned to normal.
There was no way around it; the premise for the nuclear fusion reaction is a high-temperature, high-pressure environment reaching millions of degrees, causing one neutron and one proton in the deuterium element to fuse with one neutron and two protons in the tritium element into a helium-4 nucleus and an extra neutron.
Under this premise, since the mass of deuterium and tritium at rest is greater than the sum of the mass of the helium-4 nucleus and the extra neutron.
According to the formula, this mass defect will be converted into energy and released.
And in this reaction process, most of the released energy exists in the form of high-energy neutrons and a portion of other high-energy particles.
Mainly high-energy neutrons.
And what the experiment ultimately pursues is that the enormous energy bursting from these high-energy neutrons when released can be safe and controllable.
And utilized by humanity through energy conversion properties.
This is controlled nuclear fusion.
“Reaction successful. Begin collecting energy data and container wall data.”
As Fan Ren spoke, the laboratory suddenly became busy.
NND, crazily studying books and collecting various information during this time.
If only I had this level of seriousness back then.
Thank you all for your continued support.
Although Tsinghua-Peking is no longer an option, I’ll keep working hard.
