HUNTSVILLE – Ian Wagner, a doctoral candidate of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has been selected to receive the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) award.
The honor resulted from Wagner’s proposed research project to study plasma-jet driven magneto-inertial fusion, to be conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The project seeks to advance plasma-jet magneto inertial fusion, or PJMIF, a key component to achieving breakeven fusion, which could one day lead to abundant clean energy.
PJMIF is one of several possible types of magneto-inertial fusion, where a magnetized plasma target is imploded by a material shell, called a liner. Magneto-inertial fusion (MIF) describes a class of fusion devices that use magnetic fields to confine an initial warm, low-density plasma, that it then compresses to fusion conditions…