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Theta-pinch, or θ-pinch, is a type of fusion power reactor design. The name refers to the configuration of currents used to confine the plasma fuel in the reactor, arranged to run around a cylinder in the direction normally denoted as theta in polar coordinate diagrams.
Screw pinch – A combination of a Z-pinch and theta pinch [15] (also called a stabilized Z-pinch, or θ-Z pinch) [16] [17] Reversed field pinch or toroidal pinch – This is a Z-pinch arranged in the shape of a torus. The plasma has an internal magnetic field. As distance increases from the center of this ring, the magnetic field reverses ...
These systems were originally referred to simply as pinch or Bennett pinch (after Willard Harrison Bennett), but the introduction of the θ-pinch (theta pinch) concept led to the need for clearer, more precise terminology. The name refers to the direction of the current in the devices, the Z-axis on a Cartesian three-dimensional graph. Any ...
The concept was first developed by Martin David Kruskal and Vitaly Shafranov, who noticed that the plasma in pinch effect reactors would be stable if q was larger than 1. Macroscopically, this implies that the wavelength of the potential instability is longer than the reactor. This condition is known as the Kruskal–Shafranov limit.
The FRC was first observed in laboratories in the late 1950s during theta pinch experiments with a reversed background magnetic field. [3] The original idea was attributed to the Greek scientist and engineer Nicholas C. Christofilos who developed the concept of E-layers for the Astron fusion reactor.
By 1961 work on Z-pinch devices had largely ended, although some research continued on the related theta-pinch concept. [11] Tuck never restricted himself to the pinch concept, and he spent considerable effort on other concepts, which led to joking within Los Alamos about his apparently unfocused work. [12]
Another approach to fusion was the theta pinch concept, which was similar to the z-pinch used in ZETA in theory, but used a different arrangement of currents and fields. While working on such a machine in the early 1960s, one designed with a conical pinch area, Bostick and Wells found that the machine sometimes created stable rings of plasma. [11]
The q profile in a reversed field pinch The poloidal field in a reversed field pinch. A reversed-field pinch (RFP) is a device used to produce and contain near-thermonuclear plasmas. It is a toroidal pinch that uses a unique magnetic field configuration as a scheme to magnetically confine a plasma, primarily to study magnetic confinement fusion.