Recently, the international thermonuclear fusion core components independently developed and manufactured by China have taken the lead in passing the certification of authoritative organizations in the world. This is China's major contribution to the international thermonuclear fusion project.
The above picture is a new material successfully developed by Chinese researchers through 12 years. Soon, it will be sent to Europe to participate in the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The project also has a more iconic name: called "artificial sun." And this material will constitute the most core structure in this artificial sun.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program, referred to as ITER in English, is one of the largest and most influential international scientific research cooperation projects in the world. The goal is to achieve a nuclear fusion reaction that can be controlled. It is planned to build an experimental reactor in France in 2019. Since the principle of energy generation by thermonuclear fusion reactors is similar to that of solar luminescence, it also has the reputation of “artificial sunâ€, but to build the core of “artificial sunâ€, which requires special materials to build a “ "Firewall" to protect against the high temperature environment inside the device.
In the entire international thermonuclear experimental reactor program, many countries are developing such high-temperature core materials, and the materials developed by Chinese scientists are at the core of the reactor, directly facing the high-temperature fusion materials, and thus become reactors. The "first wall". ITER's design requires that the first wall be subjected to 4.7 megawatts of heat per square meter, which can almost instantly melt one kilogram of steel.
Qi Jiming, director of the Fusion Reactor and Materials Research Office of the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry: In fact, ITER's experts have no end in mind, and this one can withstand the heat of 4.7 MW per square meter. Through our self-developed components, we became the first in the world to pass the high heat load test certification, or we can get the first production license. So this is a big contribution to ITER.
Duan Xuru, deputy dean of the Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: The first wall is a core component of ITER. The Chinese have mastered these technologies and have a great role in promoting their own (thermonuclear) fusion reactors in the future.
Nuclear fusion: the hope of humanity's future energy problems
Nuclear fusion is one of the important forms of nuclear energy. Some people even said that if nuclear fusion technology is mastered, mankind no longer needs to compete for energy and conduct war, which will have a profound impact on human development. So what kind of energy is this?
Nuclear energy is the energy released from the nucleus through nuclear reactions. At present, our common nuclear power plants use such energy. However, at present, nuclear power plants mainly split the heavier atoms into lighter atoms and release energy. This reaction process is called nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion, which is in the research stage, is just the opposite.
Duan Xuru, Associate Dean of the Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: Nuclear fusion is a combination of atoms of lighter elements, which generate atoms of heavier elements, and at the same time release energy.
In fact, such a nuclear reaction is not far away from us. Every day, the sun of the earth shines. Its light and heat come from its own slow and long-lasting nuclear fusion. Therefore, a facility that achieves stable nuclear fusion under manual control is naturally called an "artificial sun." Compared with ordinary energy, the advantages of nuclear fusion are obvious. First, the source of fuel is very rich.
Duan Xuru, deputy dean of the Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: The energy of nuclear fusion is mainly the isotope of hydrogen, the violent reaction of strontium and barium. The sputum inside a liter of seawater, if it is all fusion reaction, produces the equivalent of the energy produced by burning three hundred liters of gasoline. On the other hand, its environmental acceptability is better because the fusion reaction produces a product of ruthenium, which itself is not radioactive.
Energy is huge, safe and environmentally friendly, and nuclear fusion has long been seen as a hope for solving future energy problems. As early as 1952, humans achieved artificial nuclear fusion, but only in this way.
The huge energy of hydrogen bombs comes from the intense fusion reaction of nuclear materials, but such instantaneous release can only bring devastating effects. How to let such energy be released slowly and orderly under human control, this is the first In the 64 years after the explosion of hydrogen bombs, humans have been trying to overcome the problem.
Duan Xuru, deputy dean of the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry: During the research process, many challenges were found to be unresolved. It is still difficult to overcome the strength of a country.
For this reason, in 1985, the international community began to advocate the cooperation of many countries to develop controlled nuclear fusion reactors. This is the later ITER project. In 2006, seven countries and regions including China signed an agreement, and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Project was officially launched. This is also the largest international scientific cooperation project that China has participated in. Experts said that with the advancement of the ITER project and the research on nuclear fusion projects of various countries, human beings are expected to enter this huge, clean and safe energy source into thousands of households in the next 50 years.
Chinese wisdom allows new materials to withstand the "sun" heat
Since 2006, China has officially participated in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, in which China is responsible for 10% of the tasks, and the certified reactor core materials can be said to be one of the most difficult technological breakthroughs. In the project, China's science and technology investment and the wisdom of Chinese researchers have made important contributions to the project's progress.
In 2006, China officially joined the international thermonuclear fusion reactor project and accepted the work of developing the core components of the thermonuclear fusion reactor. The fusion material in the reactor releases high-intensity heat radiation at all times. If the properties of these materials are not good, they will be melted by high temperature or the boiler will be extinguished. To this end, the developer thought of a special structure to pass the heat away in time.
This piece of material looks like a sandwich with stainless steel underneath, a copper alloy in the middle and a special high-purity metal crucible on top. The metal crucible is placed in the reactor directly facing the high-temperature fusion material. If it is not tightly bonded to the copper alloy, the thermal insulation effect cannot be achieved. Foreign experts tried to solve this problem by ordinary welding, but the test failed. And Chinese researchers have come up with new ways.
Yang Bo, head of the first wall production workshop of the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry: put it in a vacuum package and put it in our hot isostatic pressing equipment, then inject argon and continuously add it. Press and warm. The combination of materials at this high temperature and high pressure will occur.
This method that Yang Bo and his colleagues thought of was similar to putting the material in an autoclave and burning the two materials together by pressure and temperature. The theory works well, but in practice, how much pressure is applied, how high the temperature is, and the material that comes out is perfect, and it needs to be tested again and again. The repeated blows disappointed the research team, but no one offered to give up.
Yang Bo, head of the first-wall production workshop of the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry: When we are not desperate, we just think that it must be wrong, the process is well controlled, and we believe that it will succeed.
After three years of hard work, the researchers finally burned out fully qualified products. In the tests of foreign institutions, the materials produced by this process have experienced 7,500 high and low temperature cycles, and even passed the test once the heat test is higher than the evaluation standard. This achievement made Yang Bo and his colleagues feel the changes in the entire cooperation project.
Yang Bo, head of the first-wall production workshop of the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry: Before we communicated with others, we wanted to see some of the successes of others. Now, in turn, there are many foreign colleagues who ask us what you are doing.
Qi Jiming, director of the Fusion Reactor and Materials Research Office of the Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: At the beginning of ITER, we were 20 years behind the foreign countries. By 2010, we were catching up, and we went hand in hand with them. Up to now, we have taken the lead in passing international certification. This proves that we have indeed begun to lead in some aspects.
Mysterious Ring - China Circulator 2
While participating in international cooperation to jointly develop nuclear fusion devices, China's independent nuclear fusion research is also accelerating, and a number of nuclear fusion test devices with world-class levels have been built. Our reporter also visited one of them. The experimental device called China Circulator 2A has achieved internationally high results in the testing of a number of key technologies for nuclear fusion.
This huge device is called the China Circulator 2 A Tokemark device, which is equivalent to a prototype of a future nuclear fusion reactor, and many of its technologies indicate that China's nuclear fusion research has reached the world's leading level. .
Nuclear fusion reactions require the heating of nuclear fuel to a height of hundreds of millions of degrees, which is sufficient to instantaneously vaporize any material on the earth, so what is used to hold these materials becomes a problem. Scientists have thought of using magnetic fields to bind these materials and let them fly in a circular space without touching the material. Therefore, a new reactor core structure was born.
Xu Min, deputy director of the Institute of Fusion Science, Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: Tokmak, which means an annular vacuum chamber with coils and magnetic fields, simply says it is like a tire-type vacuum chamber.
Because it is still a test device, the Chinese cyclone No. 2 A can only heat the internal temperature to 55 million degrees, but this is already several times the core temperature of the sun. In order to light up this artificial sun, the staff tried everything.
Xu Min, deputy director of the Institute of Fusion Science, Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: The practice is to generate waves of microwave and electron cyclotron, then pass through the transmission line and finally into the vacuum chamber. After the plasma absorbs these microwaves, its temperature will naturally rise. . From this principle, it is very similar to a microwave oven, but the power is much larger. The total amount injected here is 5 megawatts, and the microwave oven is usually kilowatts.
It is with such a powerful ability that China Circulator II A has greatly improved the temperature that can be achieved by China's nuclear fusion test equipment, and has obtained a lot of groundbreaking results in the frontier of many international nuclear fusion research, and it itself, It is also an important platform for China to participate in international nuclear fusion cooperation.
Xu Min, deputy director of the Institute of Fusion Science, Southwestern Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: Some technologies are original and then launched. There are some technologies that we came back to through international cooperation. So in fact, everyone is making progress together. From this level, the level of research on nuclear fusion in our country is slowly catching up to even surpassing the international advanced level.
ITER: Multinationals join hands to challenge the century
In 1952, humans used nuclear fusion to test the first hydrogen bomb. However, the peaceful use of nuclear fusion is still a distant goal pursued by mankind. It is expected that the commercial operation of nuclear fusion will be in the middle of this century, that is, in the test of hydrogen bombs by humans. 100 years later. It can be said that controlled nuclear fusion is a century-long problem for mankind, and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Project, also known as the ITER Plan, is an important step for human beings to join hands to challenge this century's problems.
The engineering construction site of the international thermonuclear fusion reactor in France, its English abbreviation is called ITER, is one of the largest and most influential international scientific research cooperation projects in the world, from China, the United States, Russia, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, With the participation of seven countries and regions in India, the construction cycle takes about 10 years and costs more than 10 billion US dollars. ITER is a test device capable of generating large-scale nuclear fusion. According to the plan, it will be completed in 2019 and will be ignited in 2035, which will become the manufacturing prototype for the future commercial nuclear fusion reactor design.
In January 2003, the ITER plan negotiations were officially launched. In May 2006, with the approval of the State Council, the China ITER Negotiation Joint Group on behalf of the Chinese government and the participating countries jointly drafted the ITER plan agreement, which includes the major nuclear countries in the world, covering nearly half of the world's population. Each country undertakes part of the workload of the entire project, and China's contribution share accounts for about 10% of the entire ITER development work.
Duan Xuru, deputy dean of the Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: This 10% is actually the main part of the material contribution, that is to say, ITER is a fusion experimental reactor, which has many components, and the Chinese side undertakes the technology of some of them. R & D to manufacturing. After finally doing it in China, I will ship it to the current ITER headquarters in France. According to the design requirements, as a fusion energy experimental reactor, ITER is required to constrain the high-temperature plasma composed of hundreds of millions of degrees and enthalpy into a magnetic cage with a volume of 837 cubic meters, generating a fusion power of 500,000 kilowatts for a duration of 500 seconds. . Although 500,000 kilowatts of thermal power is only equivalent to the level of a small thermal power station, it will be a key step for humans to master and commercialize nuclear fusion. For China, ITER will also become an important force to promote the development of China's independent nuclear fusion reactor.
Duan Xuru, deputy dean of the Southwest Institute of Physics, Nuclear Industry: By participating in the ITER program, we must master how to design the future fusion reactor. We will master this technology and intellectual property 100% in the future, and we will build a huge fusion reactor for ourselves in the future. This promotion.
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