The Promise of Nuclear Fusion
Phillip Kite1 and Alexander Richardson2
1University of Technology, Sydney, PAM; E-Mail: philip.l.kite@student.uts.edu.au
2University of Technology, Sydney, PAM; E-Mail: alexander.richardson@student.uts.edu.au
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: philip.l.kite@student.uts.edu.au
Received: 4 April 2014 / Accepted: 28 April 2014 / Published: 2 June 2014
Abstract: This paper is a meta-study exploring the progression of nuclear fusion technology from a thermodynamic perspective. Thermodynamic parameters such as power, temperature, volume, efficiency and the fusion triple product (nTτ) were analysed in order to investigate the progress that has been achieved and the challenges that lay ahead. Nuclear fusion reactor designs, confinement systems, advantages and disadvantages are discussed herein. The findings conclude that there has been significant progress made in nuclear fusion research and development, to the point of being merely one order of magnitude away from commercial reactor conditions. It was also concluded that there is very little correlation between reactor volume and the current bench mark of fusion reactor performance, the fusion triple product.
Keywords: Fusion; Reactors; Advantages; Disadvantages; Thermodynamics; Comparison;
Copyright: © 2014 by the authors. This article is distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).