An integrated test facility for inertial fusion energy using heavy ion drivers

The demonstration of inertial fusion energy (IFE) will require the construction of a sequence of physics and engineering test facilities. A key facility in the development path is the Integrated Test Facility (ITF). The ITF will be the first facility to integrate all the major subsystems required for an inertial fusion power plant including the driver, target production and injection systems, and reactor systems (chamber, blanket, heat removal, tritium recovery, etc.); it will demonstrate the technical feasibility of IFE. In this paper we describe the features of a heavy ion fusion ITF that takes advantage of the unique characteristics of inertial fusion in order to reduce development time and costs. Because fusion capsule ignition and burn physics are independent of the reaction chamber size, feasibility tests of various chamber concepts can be done at much smaller sizes (about 1-2 m first wall radius) and much lower powers (tens of MWs) than magnetic fusion development facilities such as ITER.