This patent application is preceded by an application in my name titled “Neutron Beam Interaction Station and Components”. The nuclear fission process was discovered in 1938 by Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, and Lisa Meitner at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany. It was preceded by the discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick in 1932. The first nuclear fission chain reaction pile was built under the direction of Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago in 1942. Presently there are 102 operating nuclear power plants that produce about 20% of the electrical power used in this country. These power plants use the nuclear fission process and require enriched uranium fuel. No power plants anywhere in the world today use the nuclear fusion process.
This subject patent application is based on a neutron nuclear fusion process. Hydrogen nuclear fusion processes in the sun are well known. They require very high temperatures and pressures to overcome the Coulomb electrical force in order to fuse together hydrogen atoms.
A NeuX nuclear power system consists of NeuX particles within a container, or cell, in which the particles can interact to generate energy. Neu2 is the name of a particle with two neutrons joined together. The Neu2 power system operates by causing the Neu2 particles to interact with each other and release energy.
A spherical implosion energy cell array is shown in
The purpose of the subject invention “NeuX Nuclear Power Systems” is to generate energy by causing interactions, or fusion, between Neu2 particles within energy containment cells.
Each interaction releases about 30 Mev of so called binding energy. This is similar to hydrogen thermonuclear reactions in the sun. To overcome Coulomb electrical repulsion forces between hydrogen atoms, extremely high temperatures and pressures are required in the sun for hydrogen thermonuclear reactions to occur.
Neu2 particles do not have an electrical charge. Therefor, there is no Coulomb force to overcome for reactions to occur between particles. However, in order to get Neu2 particle interactions to occur, the particles must be brought together. This can be done by shock waves from high explosive detonators on a vessel containing Neu2 particles. See
The energy from Neu2 interactions in a spherical energy cell can be used to implode and detonate a spherical cell of hydrogen deuterium and tritium atoms located at the center of a Neu2 spherical energy cell, as illustrated in
The purpose of this invention is to provide a new, safe, and economical source of nuclear energy for commercial and industrial use. The light weight and high energy yield of energy cells in the system designs of this invention make possible a new and unique fuel especially attractive for space vehicles and for aircraft. All of the energy producing cells in this invention depend on interactions between Neu2 particles, The Neu2 particle interactions constitute a nuclear fusion process. The rates of interactions depend on the collision density of the Neu2 particles. The interaction rate in a Neu2 particle energy cell is never zero. The interaction rate is increased by increasing the particle density and kinetic velocity of particles in an energy cell. In this invention the collision density is increased by shock waves applied to the Neu2 energy cell by means of high explosive blankets and by pulsed electric energy discharges.