1995 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
DEVELOPMENT OF CENTRIFUGAL SEPARATION METHOD OF ISOTOPES BY USE OF A J*B DRIVEN ROTATING PLASMA
| Project/Area Number |
05558059
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Developmental Scientific Research (B)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
エネルギー学一般・原子力学
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| Research Institution | IBARAKI UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
IKEHATA Takashi IBARAKI UNIVERSITY,DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRIC AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING,ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, 工学部, 助教授 (00159641)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
SATO Naoyuki IBARAKI UNIVERSITY,DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRIC AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING,RESEARCH AS, 工学部, 助手 (80225979)
MASE Hiroshi IBARAKI UNIVERSITY,DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRIC AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING,PROFESSOR, 工学部, 教授 (30007611)
TANAKA Masatoshi IBARAKI UNIVERSITY,DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRIC AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING,PROFESSOR, 工学部, 教授 (10250979)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1993 – 1995
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| Keywords | ROTATING PLASMA / ISOTOPE SEPARATION / PLASMA CENTRIFUGE / PLASMA ACCELERATION / PLASMA MACRO INSTABILITY / PLASMA PRODUCTION / J*B LORENTZ FORCE |
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| Research Abstract |
The aim of this research project is to develop plasma centrifuge for compact and economical stable-isotope separation. We designed two types of plasma sources : a gas-puff rotating plasma gun and a vacuum-discharge rotating plasma gun. They successfully generated gaseous rotating plasmas (Ar, He) and metal rotating plasmas (Zn/Cu, Cu, Mg/Al, Ag). Important problems associated with rotating plasmas such as the acceleration characteristics, the equilibrium and stability, charged-particle transport, and centrifugal separation coefficient have been investigated from both side of experiment and theory. First, the scaling relation of the plasma density and velocity against the discharge current and magnetic fields has been established. Because the rotational velocity is found to the magnetic field and inversely proportional to the discharge current, the use of superconducting magnet is recommended. Next, the onset of the instability on the plasma surface and its evolution to the spiral structure are observed. the mechanism is identified to be the centrifugal instability which is driven by the velocity shear between the rotating plasma and surrounding gas. For different gases and gas pressures, we measured the instability growth rate, the wave amplitude, the mode number, etc. In addition, we had a preliminaty result that the instability is stabilized if the magnetic field is strong (>1T) enough to magnetize plasma ions. Finally, we carried out the experiment on the centrifugal mass separation experiment for a mixed Zn/Cu rotating plasma. The maximum separation factor of 9 was obtained which was a hundred times as large as 0.1 of the conventional gas centrifuge.
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