All preliminary preparations have been completed, and the next step is the official ignition.
In the control room, everyone present said nothing, and all focused their attention on Xiao Yi, who was standing in the middle.
As Chief Designer, the next person to give orders can only be this Chief Designer.
Of course, for Zhao Zhanyou, Li Jiangan and other Sun-Making Plan people, they are relatively nervous at this time.
After all, this is their first time trying UO structure. They don't know whether this brand new structure will work. They can only rely on their trust in Xiao Yi to bring this structure to the forefront.
If it fails, it will undoubtedly be a very serious blow to their entire project.
As for those people at Western Institute of Physics, only they know what they think. At least, although the Chu Lansheng academician said a few months ago that UO structure would fail, he now speaks less.
However, in the opinion of Li Jiangan and others, this is just because the results will come out soon, so they will not say harsh words for now. After the specific results come out, they will probably change their faces.
As for the protagonist Xiao Yi, standing in front of the console, his heart was particularly calm.
The day has finally arrived.
Although it is not the most critical day, it can still be regarded as a critical node.
However, there is no such emotion as nervousness. The simulation results in Perfect Engineering have already told him the answer very well.
All the processes now are just moving the processes in the simulation into reality.
Therefore, at this time, Xiao Yi was even more impressed by the power of Perfect Engineering's skill.
This saved him countless time and money.
For a moment, he couldn't help but look forward to what new skills it would be able to bring to him after the BUFF was upgraded to another level.
After coming back to his senses, he refocused his eyes on the device outside the observation window. Then, he picked up the walkie-talkie and said, "Now, how are the preparations of each unit? Diagnostic team, have you completed the diagnosis?"
The person in charge of the diagnostic team quickly reported, "All inspections have been completed. All sensor functions are normal, the circuits are normal, and the data can be uploaded normally."
"Control room received!"
Xiao Yi continued to ask, "The situation of the power group."
The person in charge of the power team replied, "The power system is ready, the capacitor energy storage is fully loaded, and the municipal power plant next door is also fully loaded, and it is waiting to be supplied to us."
"The control room has received it. The magnetic restraint team will report the status."
"The magnetic confinement system is ready, the temperature of the superconducting coil is normal, the superconducting state is in good condition, and the magnetic field distribution diagram fully complies with the design."
"The control room received, Vacuum Group, reporting vacuum status."
"The vacuum system is ready and the chamber pressure has dropped to 10^-7 Pa, which meets the experimental requirements."
"Control room received, finally, fuel control group."
"The fuel injection system is ready, the deuterium and tritium fuel is loaded and ready for injection control."
"Very good, all groups are finished."
Xiao Yi Take a deep breath.
Thinking back to the last time he was in charge of lighting a fire.
At that time, Li Jiangan invited him to be responsible for the ignition. However, the process of checking the conditions of each group was completed by Zhao Zhanyou. It was he who finally pressed the button to pass the current.
And now, he had a complete experience of the whole process.
However, this time will never be the last.
Next time, what he lights will be the real sun.
Then, with a steady look in his eyes, he said, "Then, each group of personnel will evacuate the scene. In five minutes, the countdown to ignition will begin."
The working group that was still on the scene quickly evacuated the scene and returned to the safe zone.
Five minutes passed quickly, and the countdown to the ignition began in the venue.
"10!"
"9!"
"8!"
"2!"
"1!"
"Light the fire!"
Xiao Yi pressed the power button.
A huge current flows in instantly, and various heating components begin to heat the fuel injected inside. The huge current flowing in the superconductor directly brings a strong magnetic field of up to 25T to the entire UO chamber.
As the deuterium and tritium fuel enters the plasma state at high temperatures, these plasmas begin to be constrained by the magnetic field and rotate at high speed in the O-type tokamak-like annular chamber of the UO chamber.
The temperature rises rapidly, from thousands to ten thousand degrees, to one hundred thousand degrees, to one million degrees, until it reaches tens of millions of degrees.
When it reaches tens of millions of degrees, according to the alpha particle detector, the fusion reaction has begun to occur.
However, this is not enough.
The temperature continued to rise rapidly until—
"The plasma current rises to 10 million amperes and the temperature reaches 100 million degrees!"
Many researchers clenched their fists in excitement.
This heating efficiency is much faster than that of EAST. Everyone looked at the line of numbers quickly calculated on the big screen, which was equivalent to 130% of EAST!
This means that the input energy of UO structure will be about 23% lower than that of EAST!
This is undoubtedly a major breakthrough, and the meaning is that Q value will become higher.
"Okay!"
Li Jiangan and Zhao Zhanyou couldn't help but punch and then clapped.
Li Jiangan looked at Chu Lansheng next to him and said, "Chu, what do you say now?"
Chu Lansheng just said, "Chief Designer Xiao is not even excited, why are you excited?"
Li Jiangan chuckled and said, "You can continue to be tough. No one can be tougher than you. After you are burned, I will go and see if you still have your mouth open."
Chu Lansheng chuckled and said, "It's not certain who will die first, old man."
The two of them were fighting each other, and everyone present was ashamed and didn't dare to interrupt. Who dared to joke like this with the two oldest people in the room.
However, Xiao Yi is indeed not excited. To be excited, he was already excited when the first simulation was successful.
He did not forget other goals, so he continued, "Continue to heat, maintain it at 150 million degrees, and hold it for 300 seconds first."
Upon hearing his words, Western Institute of Physics people were stunned.
The current director of Western Institute of Physics, Cao Xu, couldn't help but asked immediately, "150 million degrees? 300 seconds? Is this a joke?"
Taken in isolation, 300 seconds is actually not that long.
At the beginning, EAST had already achieved a record of ultra-long pulse high-temperature plasma power generation of more than 1,000 seconds.
However, when this record was broken, the temperature did not actually reach 150 million degrees, not even 100 million degrees, because above 100 million degrees, when the fusion reaction is intense, if it persists for more than 1,000 seconds, it is simply a joke, and the entire EAST will become riddled with holes.
As a result, now, Xiao Yi actually wants to last for more than 300 seconds at 150 million degrees?
Could it be that he wanted to directly destroy this newly built device?
However, Li Jiangan and Zhao Zhanyou showed no signs of abnormality at all, with normal expressions of admiration on their faces.
Seeing this scene, Cao Xu couldn't help but said to Zhao Zhanyou, "Director Zhao, are you sure you don't want to persuade you Chief Designer Xiao? This is no joke! That's 150 million degrees!"
Zhao Zhanyou smiled and said, "We are not in a hurry, so you better not be anxious, just watch."
Cao Xu suddenly became angry and cursed, "You are completely irresponsible! At such a high temperature, the fusion reaction rate is theoretically increased by 3.3 times, and the production of high-energy neutrons will also be theoretically increased by 3.3 times! Have you done any calculations?"
"Your verification device is so small, how thick can the wall material be? If the internal wall material disintegrates, it will be dangerous!"
"Okay, Cao Xu, don't worry yet."
At this time, Chu Lansheng said something to Cao Xu.
Cao Xu was startled, turned to look at Chu Lansheng, and said, "Mr. Chu, why are you so irrational with them!"
Chu Lansheng still just said calmly, "Listen to me, don't worry yet. You see Chief Designer Xiao is not in a hurry. Do you think your calculation results are better than Chief Designer Xiao?"
"I..." Cao Xu opened his mouth, but finally said nothing and sat aside.
Li Jiangan said with a smile, "Director Cao is quite good. At least he is very responsible. You are a good judge of people."
Chu Lansheng said, "Don't worry about it."
"I'm too lazy to worry about it." Li Jiangan said, "However, I do feel that you know something."
Chu Lansheng said with a smile, "Otherwise, why do you think I came to see you? Do you really think I came to see your jokes?"
"If I hadn't made such a big fuss, Liu Cong probably wouldn't have told me about this, and was still worried that I would leak the secret. But now I just know it, and I don't know why. Now I want to see how powerful you guys are..."
Li Jiangan mocked. "No wonder you suddenly stopped making trouble after that, you old man, you act like a little brat."
Chu Lansheng: "If Xiao Yi hadn't cooperated with you, I'm afraid you would have caused trouble."
Li Jiangan chuckled, "Sorry, Xiao Yi is from Fei City. Who do you think he wants to cooperate with?"
Chu Lansheng snorted coldly and focused his attention on the big screen again.
At this time, the temperature on the big screen finally exceeded 150 million degrees!
"150 million degrees!"
People in the control room shouted excitedly.
Xiao Yi said calmly, "Start now and maintain it at 150 million degrees for 300 seconds."
Cao Xu's objection just now did not disturb him.
The original plan will not change.
As time passes, 300 seconds, 5 minutes, is not a long time for nuclear fusion. The long time is that mankind has never had a nuclear fusion device that can sustain 300 seconds at 150 million degrees; but not long is that 300 seconds is too short compared to a nuclear fusion device that needs to operate for several years or even ten years without stopping.
But these 300 seconds will become the dividing line between this long and not long.
As time slowly passed, a timer also appeared on another large screen, counting the 300 seconds.
Various data are also displayed on the large screen next to it, including the key data of impurity concentration.
Impurity concentration refers to various other impurity particles in the reaction chamber except deuterium and tritium fuel.
These impurity particles are generally unavoidable and the main components are residual air particles, impurities produced by laser irradiation during the heating process, and most importantly, impurities brought to the interior by processes such as sputtering and ablation of the first wall and divertor materials.
Cao Xu, who sat aside because he was sulking, had been staring at the impurity concentration since just now. He thought that at a high temperature of 150 million degrees, the impurity concentration would definitely rise rapidly.
However, now that the UOmini device has been running at 150 million degrees for more than 200 seconds, the impurity concentration has not changed at all.
From 0.0001% before, it is still only 0.0001% now.
"Is it fake? Is the impurity concentration sensor broken?"
He pointed at the big screen and couldn't help but say.
This has not changed at all. Doesn't it mean that except for the initial residual air impurities and the impurities generated during the laser irradiation heating process, the wall material and divertor have almost no impurities?
Are you kidding me?!
But there was no one around him.
He walked next to Chu Lansheng and told Chu Lansheng about the problem.
Chu Lansheng said, "Okay, don't think so much. Don't forget what I told you before coming here. Ask less and read more."
"This..."
Cao Xu stared.
No, it's such a strange place, why aren't you allowed to ask?
However, at this time, the people present had already focused their attention on the 300-second countdown.
At this time, the 300-second timer has reached 240 seconds, and there are only 60 seconds left to reach their goal.
Everyone watched the last 60 seconds with excitement.
And within such four minutes, all the data were quite healthy, whether it was fusion power or reaction rate.
But at this moment, Xiao Yi suddenly picked up the intercom and said, "Heating group, stop heating now!"
Everyone was stunned. Why should the heating be stopped at this time?
Now there are still 60 seconds left to complete the 300-second record!
The people in the heating team were also very confused and asked, "Chief Designer Xiao, stop heating now? Are you sure?"
Xiao Yi just said, "Just do as I say."
"This..."
The heating team members were even more confused, but they could only comply with the chief engineer's request.
Everyone couldn't help but wonder, could it be that Xiao Yi suddenly planned to keep a low profile to prevent this achievement from being too outstanding?
The heating system stopped.
Just when people thought the temperature was going to drop, they saw that the temperature data on the big screen had not changed at all and was still stable at 150 million degrees, while the timer next to it was still moving towards the 300 seconds.
"Lawson Criterion!"
Suddenly, Chu Lansheng, the old academician, said excitedly.
"Fusion has reached Lawson Criterion!"
Chu Lansheng As soon as these words came out, everyone present immediately reacted and showed shocked expressions.
Lawson Criterion!
It means that the fusion reaction has been able to be self-sustaining. The energy generated by the fusion itself is enough to allow the injected new fuel to enter the fusion state, and external energy is no longer needed to maintain the reaction!
No fusion device has ever been able to achieve this result in the past.
Now, they've set another record!
No wonder, Chief Designer Xiao said that the heating can be stopped. It turned out that he saw it and the internal reaction had reached Lawson Criterion's requirements!
Everyone was shocked for a long time before they reacted, and then they rushed to celebrate.
Applause filled the entire control room.
"You old guy, your reaction is quite fast." Li Jiangan said angrily.
"This only means that your level is not good enough and you didn't expect it." Chu Lansheng said.
"I just don't dare to think that I have reached Lawson Criterion." Li Jiangan defended himself.
In response to this, Chu Lansheng just laughed, but did not ridicule, because he was a little afraid to think about it at first.
In other words, before this, no one in the world's experts who studied controllable nuclear fusion dared to think that they could achieve Lawson Criterion.
Once it reaches Lawson Criterion, it almost means that there will no longer be a need to input energy. As long as fuel is added continuously, there will only be output energy, and the benefits of nuclear fusion power generation will be maximized!
This almost means that the dream of nuclear fusion has been realized halfway!
Only Cao Xu next to him looked confused.
This is unscientific!
This is very unscientific!
Could it be that Xiao Yi has mastered the black technology of confining neutrons?
That's not right either!
Even if neutrons are restrained, they must be allowed to hit the wall material. Otherwise, how can the heat be conducted outward?
If it doesn't conduct heat, how will it generate electricity?
The more he thought about it, the more he felt that his scientific outlook over the years was shattered.
Physics no longer exists.