While Lu Zhou was making a difficult decision, a plane landed at the airport in Lu Yang, China.
After Sheng Xianfu returned from the Wendelstein 7-X laboratory visit in Germany, he got off the plane and went straight to the Institute of Material Science on Science Island.
Ren Yong saw Professor Sheng rushing into the research institute. He happened to be in the hallway and looked at him in surprise.
"What's the rush?"
Professor Sheng's answer was only one sentence.
"Thirty minutes."
Ren Yong paused for a second. He didn't understand what Professor Sheng was talking about, but he quickly reacted and spoke in disbelief.
"Thirty minutes? They … really did it? "
Professor Sheng nodded and spoke in a serious manner.
"Actually, they almost failed in the beginning. The cooling effect of the water-cooled divertor didn't meet expectations. However, the recently published PRX thesis helped them. By improving the control scheme, they successfully reduced the heat load of the first wall material. Although there might be a difference of a few seconds from 30 minutes, these small errors are negligible. "
Even though the stellarator was a very novel research idea, there was still controversy in the academic community as to whether or not it could achieve the theoretical effect.
Even though the stellarator could easily constrain plasma compared to the Marktock, the excessive heat load caused by long -term pulsed discharge was still an open problem in nuclear fusion engineering.
However, if the Wendelstein 7-X could really achieve a 30-minute long -term pulsed discharge, it might change the entire international nuclear fusion project.
After all, the deeper they went into the Marktock device, the closer they were to the ceiling. More and more people began to reflect on whether or not this research idea would work.
"Just because of a thesis?"
Ren Yong stared blankly at Professor Sheng in disbelief.
He wasn't underestimating the usefulness of theoretical work.
It was just that the speed at which the theory was transformed into results was way too fast!
After a while, he spoke in a serious tone. "Which thesis? I'll go take a look. "
"The latest PRX thesis, the one by Lu Zhou. As for the Max Planck Institute thesis, it's on the official website of the IAEA-DEMO International Conference. It should be there by now, you'll know when you take a look. "
After saying this, Professor Sheng didn't stop and continued to walk up the stairs like a meteor.
There were only two things he had to do now.
The first thing was to report the results of this academic visit to the organization.
The second thing was to report the importance of this talent to the organization.
No matter what the price was, they had to find a way to invite him back.
Others might not understand the importance of that thesis, but he did.
Ren Yong looked at Professor Sheng's back and didn't stay in the hallway. He turned around and returned to his office.
He opened his laptop and found the theses recommended by Professor Sheng. He downloaded them and began to read them line by line.
Although he didn't fully understand it, he understood the gist of it.
Simply put, Professor Lu built a theoretical model for the plasma turbulence phenomenon in the stellarator. Then, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics rewrote the control algorithm based on his theoretical model. Through a more precise control scheme, they reduced the number of particles that hit the first wall material, thus reducing the temperature of the first wall material …
Ren Yong roughly scanned the thesis on the screen and leaned back in his office chair. He stared at the screen and spoke.
"… Is he more optimistic about the stellarator?"
In fact, China wasn't completely clueless about the stellarator.
In the early 1970s, influenced by the Americans, the 585 Institute of Physics tried to design a stellarator called "Ling Yun". However, due to the limitations of the times, this project didn't go forward.
After all, the Americans couldn't do it anymore, so they changed the Stellarator C to the Tokamak ST. They began to copy the Soviets' T3 device technology route.
Later on, the Tokamak gradually became the mainstream choice for research institutes around the world. In order to concentrate their limited resources to achieve great things, and because of the influence of Big Brother, the relevant domestic research institutes also chose the Tokamak as their technology route.
However, times were always changing. Fifty years ago, it was one thing, and fifty years later, it was another. Even though the Tokamak had always achieved good results, the most critical pulse discharge time had reached a bottleneck.
After realizing this problem, China had recently restarted stellarator related projects. For example, the H1-Heliac stellarator delivered by the Australian National University to China's Yuhua University, and the first quasi-ring symmetric stellarator in China that was jointly built by Xilin Jiaotong University and the Japanese Institute of Nuclear Fusion Science …
However, even though China had restarted stellarator research, the mainstream choice of controllable nuclear fusion technology by the Chinese Academy of Sciences was still focused on the Tokamak.
After all, there was no such thing as a standard for scientific research. Only when all kinds of research ideas blossomed would it be a healthy research environment.
For a scholar, persisting in their own research ideas was more important than anything else.
As for who was right and who was wrong …
That was a matter for history to judge.
Liu Changle, who was sitting next to him drinking tea, glanced at his screen and said, "What thesis is this? Why are there so many formulas I've never seen before? "
"Professor Lu wrote it." Ren Yong smiled and said, "It's normal that you don't understand it. I only understand the abstract."
"Professor Lu?" Liu Changle frowned and thought for a bit. He couldn't think of anyone with the surname Lu in the Chinese plasma physics community.
Ren Yong: "Lu Zhou from Princeton, who else could it be?"
When Liu Changle heard this name, he was stunned.
Of course he knew about Lu Zhou.
But this guy …
"He's a mathematician, how does he know about nuclear fusion?"
Ren Yong was amused when he heard this.
"He's a technical consultant for the PPPL He-3 project team. There are even rumors that he's the actual person in charge of the project. Not to mention, he built a mathematical model for the plasma turbulence problem in this thesis. If he doesn't have a say in this field, then the plasma in the reactor is probably the only one that has a say in this field. "
Liu Changle's expression changed.
"He-3 atom probe technology?"
He didn't know much about Lu Zhou's work, but there was no way he wouldn't have heard of the He-3 atom probe technology that caused a sensation in the industry.
Just look at the experimental reactor on the Science Island. Recently, they were designing a similar He-3 particle gun to observe the macroscopic and microscopic parameters of the high-temperature plasma inside the reactor.
In theory, this thing could be used in the stellarator and tokamak devices. Other than the nuclear fusion project, it could also be used in many plasma research projects.
The relevant theses could be downloaded from the ITER conference proceedings and many literature databases. It was considered public information; there was nothing confidential about it.
Contrary to the public's fantasy world, in reality, the only part of the nuclear fusion project that could be considered confidential was the laser ignition technology involved in nuclear tests …
Ren Yong looked at his colleague and said, "How long has it been since you paid attention to the academic community?"
Liu Changle coughed and changed the topic.
"Say, if the Chinese Academy of Sciences invites this god back one day, do you think we'll all be forced to work on the stellarator with him?"
Ren Yong: "Come on, you're already calling him a god, do you think he'll respect us? It doesn't matter if he comes back or not, he won't come back to us. "
Liu Changle frowned and said, "If he doesn't come back, where else would he go?"
After all, this was "futuristic science", and there were only a few controllable nuclear fusion research institutes in China. If he didn't go to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, would he go to Xining Jiaotong University?
That would be even smaller.
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