Technological power starts with upgrading lenses.

Chapter 366 Dead End

One day later, the Institute of Plasma, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Luzhou.

Academician Zhong Weijian is presiding over a technical seminar on the improvement of Eastern hyperloop equipment.

The main discussions at the meeting were the structural optimization of the first wall and the material replacement of super-strong neodymium magnets.

Zhong Weijian first analyzed the damage to the first wall in the last ignition experiment and believed that by slightly improving the reflection angle of the structure, the magnetic field can be effectively used to slow down the impact of escaping ions on the first wall.

However, when it comes to material replacement for super strong magnets, he seems a little secretive.
The main reason is that the Oriental Hyperloop is actually just the Chinese branch venue of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor Project (ITER) and is one of the open platforms for international thermonuclear fusion devices.

There are scientists from more than 40 countries and more than units around the world, accounting for up to %.

This kind of international cooperation project actually means that everyone builds experimental devices together, and then uses the devices to conduct experiments together and share the experimental results.

As for the parts and materials used to make these devices, it doesn’t matter who made them. Anyway, whoever comes up with better things can use them, and no one has the right to ask others to share these technologies.

And where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, let alone such heavyweight international cooperation projects.

Although the magnetic confinement system mainly depends on the performance of the superconducting material, the improvement in the performance of the magnet material is not that big, but the 9% improvement is not small at all.

"It seems that the rumors from the outside are indeed true. Datang Heavy Industries has produced N90-level super-strong neodymium magnets..."

As for foreign scholars, they were even more surprised.

"If the magnetic confinement system of the Oriental Super Ring is upgraded to a super-strong neodymium magnet, under the same input power, the steady-state strong magnetic field intensity of the Oriental Super Ring magnetic confinement system will theoretically be improved from the current 45.22 Gauss. to 49.28 Gauss, an increase of up to 9%!”

But for unknown reasons, this application was ultimately rejected.

And if you don’t use it, don’t use it. Why is it suddenly being allowed to be used again?

Although everyone only contributes 60-80% of their efforts, after all, there is strength in numbers.
When everyone brainstorms, learns from each other, and makes progress together, the effect is usually better than if an individual exerts 100% of his or her efforts.

They even knew that Zhong Weijian submitted an application to the Ministry of Science and Technology to upgrade EAST's magnetic materials last year.

Basically, every participating party will retain more or less one hand.
No one will expose their special skills without reservation.

Probably, it can increase the ignition time by one or two hundred seconds?
This performance improvement is indeed worth stopping all experimental projects and upgrading the equipment.

Regarding China's manufacturing of N90-level super-strong neodymium magnets, the outside world has always just speculated, and has never received any official confirmation. However, today Zhong Weijian has confirmed this matter.

I don't quite understand what it means...

After all, materials that can be used in electric trucks are completely unreasonable not to be used in EAST...

Therefore, Zhong Weijian simply announced the performance of this new material, which is 90MGOe, without mentioning any technical details of this material.

"90MGOe is another world-leading material..."

Although the Chinese scholars showed surprise and curiosity, on the whole they were relatively calm.
They have all heard about this 90MGOe super strong neodymium magnet.

This is somewhat surprising.

In fact, this stuff is no longer a secret in China. Many heavy-duty truck motors have already used this kind of magnet.

There are rumors that the Ministry of Science and Technology decided to reject the application after consulting Kang Chi.

This is also the reason why international cooperation projects still exist even though everyone has their own agenda and often argue with each other.

After hearing Zhong Weijian's analysis, there were two completely different reactions at the venue.

Seeing that everyone has no objections to this, the next step is the specific time arrangement and cost accounting for this upgrade.

After all, it is an international cooperation project, and everyone contributes the money in proportion. Therefore, the cost of every major equipment upgrade must be disclosed. This link is usually the most likely to cause disagreements.

In a sense, this is an equipment 'purchasing meeting'.
Everyone hopes that their stuff will win the bid. However, in today's 'purchasing meeting', everyone's opinions were quickly unified.

After all, with the performance of 90MGOe, no one except Datang Heavy Industries can produce it.

After the meeting, Zhong Weijian finally breathed a sigh of relief.

After returning to his office, he immediately sat on a chair and lit a cigarette.

At this time there was a knock on the door suddenly.

"Please come in."

After the door was pushed open, Professor Cheng Tao from the School of Engineering of HuaTech University came in. After he closed the door with his backhand, he couldn't help but ask: "Why did the higher-ups suddenly approve such an application that had already been rejected?"

"I don't know either." Zhong Weijian shook his head, and then handed a cigarette to Cheng Tao, "I thought this application had already been in the trash can, but I didn't expect that not only did they pull it out and approve it, but they also looked very anxious. The way..."

After Cheng Tao took the cigarette, he lit it and took a puff, then pondered for a moment before saying: "Actually, I analyzed it carefully later and felt that Dr. Kang's suggestion to the Ministry of Science and Technology at that time was right..."

"Although the 9% increase in magnetic field strength is not small, apart from making the ignition results of EAST better, it does not provide a qualitative improvement. Instead, it requires a lot of time to upgrade the device."

"Replacing magnetic materials is almost equivalent to dismantling and rebuilding the entire device. The amount of work is too large. It can be completely upgraded after other materials or technologies have made significant progress..."

Zhong Weijian also nodded: "You have discussed this issue with me several times. I have been convinced by you a long time ago. In fact, I also stated your point of view yesterday..."

"But the problem is, it's not us who filed the application, but they gave the death order... To be honest, I'm still a little confused now, and I always feel that this matter is a bit strange."

The two of them pondered for a long time but could not figure out the meaning above. Professor Cheng finally sighed and gave up thinking about this problem, which was more brain-consuming than doing research.

"That aside, I feel like we've reached a dead end..."

"A dead end?" Zhong Weijian glanced at Cheng Tao in surprise, "When did you become a pessimist?"

"In the past, major research theories were published one after another, and optimization plans for device structures were published one after another..."

Professor Cheng smiled helplessly,
"But now an upgrade of magnet materials can make everyone grasp at a life-saving straw. Even such a drastic upgrade feels worthwhile... This is actually enough to show that EAST is falling into a huge bottleneck."

"You and I both know that if the Q-value cannot be improved, no matter how long the restraint duration is increased, even if the restraint lasts for a few hours or even a few days, it will just be a placebo for everyone to persist..."

Zhong Weijian couldn't help but fell silent after hearing this.

He could actually completely understand Cheng Tao's 'pessimism'.

The current research progress and breakthroughs in nuclear fusion mainly reflect the ignition duration, but the Q value is rarely mentioned.

Because just mentioning it makes people feel somewhat despairing.

When the Q value is equal to 1, it means that the energy produced by the nuclear fusion reaction is equal to the external energy it consumes.

But in fact, the Q value must be greater than 5 for the reactor to be self-sustaining. If the conversion between thermal energy, kinetic energy, and electrical energy is also taken into account, the Q value must reach at least 10 to be profitable, which means that it can be initially commercialized, but the benefits are not Not big.

If you want mature commercialization with relatively large returns, you need more than 30.

The highest Q value currently achieved by humans is John Bull’s JET reactor.
Its Q value is only 0.67...

Although the island country’s JT-60 has simulated experiments with deuterium-tritium, the theoretical value has reached 1.25.

But those are just theoretical values, and actual experiments have not been done at all.

They are dismantling the JT-60 and rebuilding the JT-60U for verification.

Whether it is 0.67 or 1.25, in front of the mountain of numbers 10-30, the difficult advancement speed will inevitably make people feel a little suffocated and desperate.

(End of this chapter)