Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 91 Magnetic Confinement

Although secondary pressurization propulsion technology is not as good as high-speed ion propulsion technology, it has incomparable advantages over traditional chemical fuel propulsion technology.

From a basic principle perspective, it's actually quite simple.

First of all, it also uses traditional chemical fuels as propellants, such as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, methane and liquid oxygen, etc.

After these chemical fuels burn in the combustion chamber, the temperature and pressure will rise sharply. This is the so-called first pressurization.

The traditional propulsion method is to directly eject high-temperature and high-pressure gas after it is generated, thereby obtaining reverse thrust.

However, in the secondary pressurization propulsion technology, after the first combustion and pressurization, these gases are not ejected out, but introduced into another chamber.

The nuclear fission reactor is located next to this chamber.

The nuclear fission process releases unimaginably high temperatures, and temperature is related to pressure: the higher the temperature, the higher the pressure.

Therefore, the energy from the nuclear fission reactor is used to pressurize the gas in this chamber, which is already at extremely high pressure, again after the first pressurization.

This is the secondary pressurization.

After the second pressurization, the internal energy of the gas will expand to a level far beyond that of ordinary chemical combustion. The speed at which it is ejected from the injection pipe will also far exceed the limit of ordinary chemical combustion.

The magnitude of the reverse thrust is positively correlated with the injection velocity of the working fluid.

In conventional chemical combustion, the velocity of the working fluid would not exceed five kilometers per second. After secondary pressurization, the velocity could be increased to over 30 kilometers per second, a sixfold increase!
As a result, the utilization rate of these working fluids has increased to six times the original level.

The journey that originally required carrying 60 tons of fuel can now be completed with only 10 tons!
How much more cargo and passengers could be carried with the 50 tons of mass saved? Even if there were no more cargo, and the spacecraft were still loaded with 60 tons of fuel, how much faster could it be, and how much more maneuverable would it be, using secondary pressurization technology?
This is the advantage of secondary pressurization propulsion technology.

It can be said that without this technology, relying solely on chemical fuel propulsion, Li Qingsong would have no chance of completing the long journey of more than 10 billion kilometers from Luoshen to the inner solar system.

Now, the task of miniaturizing nuclear fission reactors has been preliminarily completed.

Although it cannot be miniaturized enough to fit into a warship or a small spacecraft, at least it can fit into a large cargo ship.

In this case, it is time to start research on secondary pressurization propulsion technology.

Li Qingsong treated it as a formidable enemy and went all out, once again mobilizing all the forces under his command to launch this most important scientific research task at the current stage.

Although the basic principle of this technology is simple, its actual application is even more difficult than the miniaturization of nuclear fission reactors.

The reason is very simple. The secondary pressurization propulsion technology has very high requirements for material performance.

The combustion of chemical fuels releases extremely high temperatures, which requires extremely advanced heat-resistant materials to contain.

After the second pressurization, their temperature will rise sharply again, even to tens of thousands of degrees Celsius.

What kind of material can withstand this temperature?
Li Qingsong's knowledge of physics and chemistry told him that no material could withstand this. This meant that Li Qingsong couldn't use any traditional containment methods, such as building a sturdy container, to contain the re-pressurized gas.

New forms of restraint must be introduced.

Fortunately, Li Qingsong has another method to use.

After undergoing the secondary pressurization process and being heated to a temperature of tens of thousands of degrees Celsius by a nuclear fission reactor, the carbon dioxide and water produced by the combustion of methane and oxygen can no longer remain in a gaseous state at this temperature.

The molecules that make them up will be directly decomposed, and electrons will be stripped from the atoms to form plasma.

Since it is plasma, it will be affected by the magnetic field, so Li Qingsong has an appropriate way to restrain it.

Magnetic field confinement.

Powered by a nuclear fission reactor, a powerful magnetic field confinement system is constructed with the help of electricity. Without the use of any physical container, these high-temperature and high-pressure plasmas can be bound together to prevent them from exploding inside the thruster.

Then, guided by the magnetic field, the plasma is ejected from the tail of the spacecraft at an extremely high speed, thus completing a secondary pressurization process and greatly improving the utilization efficiency of the working fluid.

But even if magnetic field confinement devices are used, the containers in which these devices are installed will still be affected by intense radiation and extreme high temperatures, and still require extremely high material properties to withstand them.

At the same time, various equipment also need to work under extremely harsh working conditions and maintain sufficient stability and reliability, which places higher requirements on material performance.

This is also a project that has no shortcuts and requires careful and focused research.

As he pushed forward with his work, Li Qingsong sighed silently in his heart: "Sure enough, the development of science and technology is interconnected, like a chain.

Preceding technologies are the foundation for subsequent, more advanced technologies. Without preceding technologies, subsequent technologies would not have emerged without reason.

Just like the core technology of the secondary pressurization propulsion technology that I am currently working on, magnetic confinement is very likely to be the key to future controlled nuclear fusion technology. At the same time, electromagnetic conversion technology is also very likely to be the key to future high-speed ion propulsion technology.

Mastering secondary pressurization propulsion technology will lay the foundation for overcoming these two crucial technical challenges in the future."

With Li Qingsong's full efforts, the first propulsion experiment soon began in a newly built propulsion laboratory in a basin somewhere on Luoshen Star.

The modular nuclear fission reactor and the traditional chemical combustion engine are placed on the left and right respectively, connected by thick pipes. There is also a huge nozzle behind the nuclear fission reactor.

With the ignition command, a large amount of liquid oxygen and methane were transported to the chemical combustion chamber. During the intense combustion, they turned into gaseous carbon dioxide and water, and then were transported to the nuclear fission reactor module.

The nuclear fission reactor modules simultaneously activated fission reactions. Through the fission of uranium-235, the surging energy hidden deep within the material was released. Some of this energy heated the gaseous carbon dioxide and water, causing them to soar to tens of thousands of degrees Celsius, transforming them into plasma. Another portion of this energy was converted into electricity, creating a powerful magnetic field that bounded the plasma.

Then the next moment, there was a bang and it exploded.

The earth shook and the mountains trembled, and the area within a radius of dozens of meters was razed to the ground.

(End of this chapter)