Electrical modeling and scaling of the HelicitySpace peristaltic compressor

The Helicity Drive concept introduced in [1] and being developed by the HelicitySpace LLC will utilize a peristaltic magnetic compressor [2] to compress merged Taylor-State plasmas toward fusion conditions. The compression is predicted to occur as the plasma propagates along the bore of a linear array of Bitter coils arranged as a spatially varying, lumped-parameter transmission line driven by two capacitor banks discharged in succession. Circuit and magnetic field simulations have been developed and used to guide the design of a prototype compressor which has been built and tested at UMBC [3]. The timing and dispersion of the propagating magnetic field predicted by the simulations have been demonstrated in the prototype. The circuit simulations have been improved to calculate losses and complications which may occur when the compressor is placed in vacuum and used to transport and compress an actual plasma. Predictions of the plasma response to and back-reaction on the imploding field of the compressor will also be presented.

[1] S. You, AIAA Propulsion & Energy, AIAA-2020-3835 (2020)

[2] P. M. Bellan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 858 (1979)

[3] Poster at this conference: N. Marin, S. Pree, C. A. Romero-Talamas et al.