Muon catalyzed fusion - an investigation of reactor design

In this dissertation, we calculate the power capacity and tritium replacement ratios for muon catalyzed fusion vessels containing mixtures of deuterium and tritium (dt). This calculation is done for various wall thicknesses, types of metal and dt densities. This allows us to ascertain which of these configurations (wall thickness, metal and dt density) has the most promise. In order to calculate these quantities, we start with an assumed wall thickness and metal type and determine the muon energy necessary to penetrate the wall and emerge in the dt mixture. From the energy of the emerging muon we determine the vessel size for the different dt densities. For each vessel configuration we find a) the relationship between the steady state dt temperature, the vessel wall temperature and the muon flux; b) the maximum pressure the vessel can contain and c) the number of tritons bred per fusion neutron. Using the equation of state for the dt, we relate this maximum pressure to a maximum dt temperature from which we infer a maximum muon flux. Assuming 150 fusion reactions catalyzed per muon, we can then extract the power generated for each configuration and assess the ratio of the rates of tritium creation to tritium decay.