Subsystem Integration

The machine works only when magnets, plasma, heating, vacuum, conversion, cooling, and control operate as one coupled system along the axis.

Each subsystem of the burner has its own page, but the machine is defined by how they couple. The magnets set the field; the field and heating set the plasma; the plasma feeds the direct converter; the converter, shielding, and cryoplant generate heat the thermal system rejects; and the control system holds all of it at the operating point. Change one and the others respond.

Integration is strongest along the confinement chain: the plug field, plug plasma, ambipolar potential, and central-cell burn are a single interdependent loop. A sag in plug heating lowers the potential, which cools the central cell, which changes the burn and the exhaust the DEC sees. The machine must be controlled as one coupled system, not as independent parts.

The main couplings

• Plug field ↔ plug plasma ↔ ambipolar potential ↔ central-cell burn
• Central-cell burn ↔ exhaust ↔ DEC power and heat
• Neutron fraction ↔ shielding heat ↔ thermal rejection
• Cryogenic margin ↔ magnet field ↔ everything downstream
• Control system ↔ all of the above in steady state

Why integration is the risk

The hardest problems are at the couplings, not within a single box. The plug-regime gate is a plasma problem, but its consequence is loss of confinement across the whole machine. The availability gate is an integration problem: any one subsystem taking the machine down lowers the whole. Reading the burner means reading it as a system, which is why these pages cross-link so densely.

All figures are design-and-simulation values for a machine not yet built.