On the Acceleration of a Superconducting Carrier of a Cryogenic Fuel Target by a Sequence of Current-Carrying Solenoids

• Published in: Bulletin of the Lebedev Physics Institute Vol. 50; no. 8; pp. 332 - 336
• Main Authors: Aleksandrova, I. V., Agapov, M. N., Akunets, A. A., Koresheva, E. R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01.08.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Fuels; Levitation; Magnetic levitation railways; Motion control; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Solenoids; cryogenic fuel target (CFT); inertial confinement fusion (ICF); high-temperature superconductors (HTSC); CFT delivery with levitation
• ISSN: 1068-3356; 1934-838X
• DOI: 10.3103/S106833562308002X

The Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI) actively develops innovative technologies for creating the HTSC—MAGLEV accelerator for delivering a cryogenic fuel target (CFT) placed in a levitating HTSC-carrier to the ICF chamber for interacting with laser radiation. The LPI approach is based on the phenomenon of HTSC quantum levitation in a gradient magnetic field. Acceleration is provided by a sequence of current-carrying solenoids, and HTSC-carrier levitation occurs due to the use of a magnetic rail, along which the solenoids are placed. A prototype of an elementary block for accelerating an HTSC-carrier is developed and its motion control processes are studied. For this purpose, a special system of operational control of the acceleration block is developed and tested. The HTSC-carrier acceleration up to 1 m/s at the acceleration length L a = 20 cm is demonstrated using only one pair of matched solenoids. The results obtained are of practical importance in the area of creating noncontact systems for CFT delivery due to constructing a linear magnetic track by connecting one elementary acceleration unit with many others to achieve a required CFT injection rates from 20 to 200 m/s and higher.