ANULUM / SCPN Reactor Systems / Self-magnetic and pulsed pinches

Self-magnetic and pulsed pinches

In a pinch the confining field is produced by the current that flows through the plasma. The z-pinch drives an axial current whose azimuthal field compresses the column, with sheared axial flow as the stabilising variant; the theta-pinch drives an azimuthal current from an external coil so the axial field does the compression. The dense plasma focus runs a current sheath down coaxial electrodes and collapses it into a short, hot pinch at the end.

Each device core below is the single owner of its reactor family's configuration truth inside the SCPN Reactor Systems research group. Solver mathematics stays in SCPN-Fusion-Core, shared physics and geometry kernels in SCPN Reactor Kernels; a device core consumes them through versioned seams and cannot actuate anything directly.

Device cores in this family

SCPN-Z-PINCH-CORE · Z-pinch · The Current Is The Confinement Owns the configurations: sheared-flow z-pinch, z-pinch repository · evidence maturity: computational_prototype · 5 implemented capabilities: device configuration model, diagnostic and clock semantics, level-0 device physics, device 3D model, device CAD model · no release, no demo
SCPN-THETA-PINCH-CORE · Theta-pinch · Azimuthal Current, Axial Field Owns the configurations: theta-pinch repository · evidence maturity: computational_prototype · 5 implemented capabilities: device configuration model, diagnostic and clock semantics, level-0 device physics, device 3D model, device CAD model · no release, no demo
SCPN-DENSE-PLASMA-FOCUS-CORE · Dense plasma focus · Coaxial Drive, Focused Pinch Owns the configurations: dense plasma focus repository · evidence maturity: computational_prototype · 5 implemented capabilities: device configuration model, diagnostic and clock semantics, level-0 device physics, device 3D model, device CAD model · no release, no demo

Where to start

Read the physicsThe Bennett equilibrium and its instabilities, the sharp-boundary theta-pinch of the Scyllac review, and the Lee model's normalised circuit, snowplow and focus phases. Try the explorerLoad the twelve-machine table rows the plasma-focus core fits (PF1000, NX3, INTI, PF400J), the Scyllac 5-m sector, or a hydrogenic Z-pinch at the Pease–Braginskii current. Walk the three configurationsZ-pinch, theta-pinch and dense plasma focus: what each core owns, excludes, anchors on and does not claim. See where MagLIF sitsA premagnetised, preheated liner implosion is a pinch by drive and a magneto-inertial device by physics; the family boundary is drawn there. Check the sourcesBennett 1934, Haines 2011, Kadomtsev 1966, Shumlak and Hartman 1995, Klíř 2005, Quinn et al. 1973, Lee 2014, Saw and Lee 2017, Lee 2012.

Other families

Closed magnetic confinement5 device cores Open and non-toroidal magnetic confinement3 device cores Self-magnetic and pulsed pinches3 device cores Inertial confinement3 device cores Magneto-inertial and magnetised-target systems4 device cores Electrostatic, beam-target and hybrid systems3 device cores Compare all sixevery level-0 anchor side by side