In January 1951, Ulam had another idea : to channel the mechanical shock of a nuclear explosion so as to compress the fusion fuel.
32.
One might attempt to circumvent the problem by confining the fission fuel magnetically, in a manner similar to the fusion fuel in a tokamak.
33.
The energy released by a given mass of fusion fuel is several times larger than that released by the same mass of a fission fuel.
34.
A $ 4 billion laser, under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is expected to create even more extreme conditions by crushing pellets of fusion fuel.
35.
I was reading this article which explains that it would take 1x10 ^ 11 antiprotons to catalyze fusion in a 3 gram pellet of fusion fuel.
36.
A small pellet of fusion fuel ( with a diameter of a couple of millimeters ) would be ignited by an electron beam or a laser.
37.
For illustration, the Lawson criterion for the deuterium & ndash; tritium reaction will be derived here, but the same principle can be applied to other fusion fuels.
38.
The 1952 U . S . Ivy Mike test used cryogenically cooled liquid deuterium as the fusion fuel in the secondary, and employed the D-D fusion reaction.
39.
The liquid deuterium fuel of Ivy Mike was impractical for a deployable weapon, and the next advance was to use a solid lithium deuteride fusion fuel instead.
40.
Uranium is used, not in the " primary ", but in the " secondary " of most thermonuclear weapons, for the " tamper " around the fusion fuel.
