INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING and INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY NUCLEAR FUSION Nucl. Fusion 45 (2005) S291–S297 doi:10.1088/0029-5515/45/10/S25 Power plant design and accelerator technology for heavy ion inertial fusion energy B.Yu. Sharkov 1,a , N.N. Alexeev 1 , M.M. Basko 1 , M.D. Churazov 1 , D.G. Koshkarev 1 , S.A. Medin 2 , Yu.N. Orlov 3 and V.M. Suslin 3 1 Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, B. Cheremushkinskaya 25, 117259 Moscow, Russia 2 Institute for High Energy Densities, RAS, Izhorskaya 13/19, 125412 Moscow, Russia 3 Keldysh Institute for Applied Mathematics, RAS, Miusskaya 4, 125047 Moscow, Russia E-mail: boris.sharkov@itep.ru Received 22 December 2004, accepted for publication 23 March 2005 Published 7 October 2005 Online at stacks.iop.org/NF/45/S291 Abstract The concept of a power plant for fast-ignition heavy ion fusion is developed. It is based on repetitive detonation of a cylindrical direct-drive target, producing 750MJ of fusion yield in each microexplosion. A heavy-ion driver system providing consequent compression and ignition of the cylindrical DT target is described. Data on energy fluxes generated by the microexplosion are given. The design of the thin liquid wall reactor chamber is presented. The behaviour of the liquid film at the first wall and the blanket coolant and material under a pulsed energy flux loading is analysed. The energy conversion thermal scheme and power plant output parameters are presented. The state of the art at the ITEP-TWAC experimental accelerator is described. PACS numbers: 52.58.Hm, 28.52.Av, 52.57.Fg 1. Introduction For inertial fusion energy, heavy ion beams represent a highly attractive approach to driving the targets in a practical electricity-generating power plant. The decisive factors determining the choice of the heavy ion driver are high accelerator efficiency and sufficiently large target gain. These are the conditions providing high efficiency of the power plant. The HYLIFE-II concept [1, 2] employs a linear induction 10 GeV-heavy-ion driver, indirect drive target and thick liquid wall reactor chamber. In this concept the reactor chamber materials problem is practically eliminated at the cost of optimal organization of liquid jets dynamic pocket. An alternative concept of a heavy ion fusion power plant has been proposed in [3, 4]. This concept is based on a 100 GeV-heavy-ion driver, direct drive of a cylindrical target in the fast ignition mode and a blanket with a thin-liquid first wall. Such an approach is characterized by a simple driver–reactor chamber interface and by a moderate value of the required target gain. The problems of the fast-ignition heavy ion fusion (FIHIF) concept are related to the rigid physical conditions of the fast-ignition scenario and the length of the heavy ion driver. a Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. In this paper new data on the target energy release and the reactor chamber response, obtained using the numerical codes developed, are given. The output parameters of the FIHIF power plant are updated. Recent experimental results on the IFE related accelerator physics and technology issues obtained using a newly commissioned ITEP-TWAC facility are discussed. 2. Ground plan and high-power driver The ground plan of the proposed FIHIF power plant is outlined in figure 1. The length of the main linac is of the order of 10 km. The diameter of the storage and compression rings is 1 km. The area occupied by the reactor and turbogenerator building, as well as the cooling towers, is of the same order of magnitude. The driver consists of the following main parts [4]: ion sources for four Pt isotopes with the plus and minus charge states are arranged in eight groups of four devices each. In the main linac the ion energy is increased to 100GeV. After this the ions with different charges and masses are separated into eight beams, which are compressed in two stages—in storage rings and in exit sections by the time-of-flight method. The final collection of eight beams in an individual transfer line results in a single bunch of 0.2 ns 0029-5515/05/100291+07$30.00 © 2005 IAEA, Vienna Printed in the UK S291