Magnetized Target Fusion Using Mechanically-Driven Liquid Metal Liner

General Fusion (GF) is pursuing a mechanically-driven liquid metal path to Magnetized Target Fusion. A cylindrical cavity is formed in liquid metal through rotation. A plasma target is formed into this cavity by coaxial helicity injection (CHI). The cavity is rapidly collapsed by mechanical drivers. A practical power plant is achieved by cyclically repeating this process. The liquid metal serves as first wall, neutron blanket, compression system, working fluid, and toroidal field return circuit.

Our Pi3 plasma experiment forms spherical tokamak plasmas for evaluation as targets. Plasma current up to 500 kA, and Te of 200 eV have been achieved. Thermal confinement analysis shows scaling similar to ITERL97. In our SLiC experiment ST targets interact with a liquid lithium free surface. CHI formation and compression through cavity collapse are simulated with resistive MHD.

Our liquid cavity experiments perform compressions with water and Galinstan and are supported by our CFD-MHD code in openFOAM. Smooth collapse of a cylindrical vortex driven by discrete drivers has been achieved, with excellent match between experiment and simulation.

Sub-system and component-level effort will come together in an integrated demonstration at Culham, UK, currently under design, called the FDP.