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, he seems a little secretive when it comes to material replacement for super strong magnets.

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 30 countries and more than 100 units around the world, accounting for up to 40%.

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.

Basically, every participating party will retain more or less one hand.

No one will expose their special skills without reservation.

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.

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

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

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

Although the Chinese scholars showed surprise and curiosity, on the whole they were relatively calm.

They have all heard about this kind of super-strong neodymium magnets.

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

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

But for unknown reasons, this application was ultimately rejected.

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

This is somewhat surprising.

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

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

I just don’t quite understand what it means...

As for foreign scholars, they were even more surprised.

The outside world has always just speculated that China has produced N90-level super-strong neodymium magnets, and has never received any official confirmation. However, today Zhong Weijian confirmed this matter.

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

It is another material that leads the world..."

"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 452,200 Gauss. to 492,800 Gauss, an increase of up to 9%!”

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.

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.

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, for every major equipment upgrade, the cost 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 quickly reached a consensus.

After all, no one can produce it except Datang Heavy Industries.

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 look..."

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, it does not bring about a qualitative improvement except for making EAST's ignition results look better. Instead, it requires a lot of time to upgrade the device."

"Replacing the magnetic material is almost equivalent to dismantling and rebuilding the entire device. The workload is too large. We can wait until other materials or technologies have made significant progress before upgrading them uniformly..."

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 that now it is not us who apply, but they give a death order... To be honest, I am 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 above meaning. Professor Cheng finally sighed and gave up thinking about this problem that was more brain-consuming than doing research.

"Putting this aside, I feel like we have reached a dead end..."

"Dead end?" Zhong Weijian looked at Cheng Tao in surprise, "When did you become a pessimist?"

"In the past, major research theories came one after another, and optimization plans for the device structure came one after another..."

Professor Cheng smiled helplessly,

"But now an upgrade of the magnet material can make everyone feel like they have grabbed a life-saving straw, even such a big upgrade feels worthwhile... This is actually enough to show that EAST is in a huge bottleneck."

"You and I know that if the Q value cannot be improved, no matter how much the constraint time is increased, even if it is constrained for a few hours or even a few days, it is just a placebo for everyone to persist..."

Zhong Weijian fell silent after hearing this.

He can actually fully understand Cheng Tao's "pessimism".

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

Because as long as it is mentioned, people will feel a little desperate.

When the Q value is equal to 1, it means that the energy generated 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 heat, kinetic energy and electrical energy is taken into account, the Q value must reach at least 10 to be profitable, which means that it can be initially commercialized, but the profit is not large.

For mature commercialization with relatively large profits, it needs to be more than 30.

The highest Q value that humans have truly achieved at present is John Bull's JET reactor,

Its Q value is only 0.67...

Although the island country's JT-60 has achieved a theoretical value of 1.25 through simulation experiments with deuterium-tritium,

that is only a theoretical value, and no actual experiments have been done.

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

Whether it is 0.67 or 1.25, in the face of the mountain of 10-30 numbers, the difficult advancement speed is inevitably suffocating and desperate.