Chapter 153 The Final Hidden Danger
At three in the morning, the lights in the control room were still on.
Lin Mo stared at the data on the screen, his brow gradually furrowing. He had been looking at it for six consecutive hours; his eyes were dry, but he felt no sleepiness at all.
On the screen was the result of the system's latest round of simulations. Out of a hundred thousand ignition deductions, ninety-nine thousand nine hundred were successful, and one hundred failed. The failure rate was 0.1%, far below the design threshold.
This should have been good news.
But Lin Mo's gaze fell on the root cause analysis of those hundred failures.
"plasma turbulence instability leading to confinement failure."
He pulled up the specific data for each failure and analyzed it line by line. Most of the time, the curves were smooth, but at a certain specific moment, tiny fluctuations would appear. The magnitude of these fluctuations was very small, so small that they could almost be ignored in normal monitoring.
But it was these tiny fluctuations that, in a hundred simulations, accumulated to a critical point and eventually caused the plasma to spiral out of control.
Lin Mo rubbed his eyes and looked again.
That's right.
The problem existed.
Although the probability was only 0.1%, and it wouldn't affect the initial ignition, this hidden danger had to be resolved if the device was to operate long-term.
He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the pitch-black Gobi Desert.
There were twenty-nine days left until ignition.
At six in the morning, Lin Mo knocked on Chen Xueming's door.
Chen Xueming opened the door, and seeing Lin Mo's expression, he was stunned for a moment. "Did something happen?"
Lin Mo shook his head, then nodded. "I found a problem and need to discuss it."
Ten minutes later, in the meeting room.
Chen Xueming stared at the data on the screen and remained silent for a long time. Li Xiao had also arrived; her eyes were circled in black, but her concentration was highly focused.
"Turbulence instability?" Chen Xueming finally spoke. "The magnitude is so small, how did you find it?"
Lin Mo pointed to the set of curves. "In a hundred thousand simulations, there were a hundred failures. I traced them back and found that before every failure, this set of fluctuations occurred."
Chen Xueming looked closely for a long while before nodding. "It does exist. But with such a small magnitude, normal monitoring wouldn't detect it at all."
Li Xiao raised her hand. "President Lin, will this fluctuation affect the ignition?"
Lin Mo shook his head. "It won't. The initial ignition only lasts a few seconds, and these fluctuations won't accumulate to the critical point. But if it runs long-term—for months or years—this hidden danger could erupt."
Chen Xueming understood. "You mean, what we need to solve isn't an ignition problem, but a device lifespan problem?"
Lin Mo nodded.
Li Xiao scratched her head. "Then... should we deal with it? Ignition is fine anyway."
Lin Mo looked at her, his tone calm but firm:
"Xiao Xiao, this device isn't just for a one-time ignition. It needs to run for ten or twenty years; it needs to become a milestone for human energy. If we don't solve it now, who will be responsible when problems arise later?"
Li Xiao lowered her head and stopped talking.
Chen Xueming suddenly smiled. "President Lin is right. As researchers, we can't just focus on what's right in front of us. Ignition is the first step, but there's a long road ahead."
He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, and drew a simple magnetic field configuration diagram.
"Turbulence instability is essentially due to imperfect magnetic confinement. During the plasma's movement, the magnetic field strength in certain areas is slightly lower, leading to local fluctuations." He circled several locations on the diagram with a red pen. "If we can adjust the magnetic field configuration at these points and increase the confinement strength, we should be able to suppress these fluctuations."
Lin Mo stared at the diagram, lost in thought. "Adjusting the magnetic field configuration... will it affect other parameters?"
Chen Xueming shook his head. "It's a local adjustment, so the scope of influence is limited. But we'll need to rerun the simulations to verify the stability of the entire system."
Lin Mo nodded. "Then run them."
For the next three days, everyone entered another state of frenzy.
Chen Xueming led his team in designing three magnetic field adjustment plans. For each plan, they had to recalculate the current parameters for hundreds of coils to ensure that the changes in the magnetic field configuration wouldn't affect other subsystems.
Li Xiao's Digital Twin System ran non-stop twenty-four hours a day. For each plan, they had to run ten thousand simulations to verify stability under various operating conditions.
Lin Mo stayed in the control room, staring at every curve.
On the evening of the third day, the results for the first plan came out.
On the screen, the magnitude of the turbulence fluctuations had significantly decreased, dropping from the original 0.3% to 0.1%. But the trade-off was a 5% increase in the heat load on the Divertor.
Chen Xueming frowned. "A 5% increase in heat load—can the Divertor handle it?"
Li Xiao pulled up the Divertor's data. "The design margin is 10%, so 5% is still within range. But for long-term operation, it would accelerate material fatigue."
Lin Mo shook his head. "No. We can't create another problem just to solve one."
The second plan came out on the morning of the fourth day.
Turbulence fluctuations dropped to 0.15%, and the heat load increased by 2%. The energy consumption of the Magnet System rose by 3%.
Chen Xueming looked at the data and sighed. "Increased energy consumption means higher operating costs. While it's not a major issue, we should avoid it if possible."
Lin Mo nodded. "Let's look at the third one."
In the early morning of the fifth day, the results for the third plan finally came out.
On the screen, all the data was slowly pulsing. Lin Mo stared unblinkingly at the most important curve—
Turbulence fluctuations: 0.05%.
Heat load: No change.
Magnet energy consumption: No change.
Other subsystems: All normal.
Chen Xueming let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair.
"It's a success."
Li Xiao was so excited she almost jumped up. "President Lin! It's a success!"
Lin Mo stared at that straight curve and remained silent for a long time.
Then he stood up, walked over to Chen Xueming, and extended his hand:
"Teacher Chen, thank you."
Chen Xueming was stunned for a moment, then he shook his hand and smiled:
"No need to thank me. We're on the same team."
That afternoon, Lin Mo called a team meeting.
He stood in front of the whiteboard and briefly explained the process of discovery and resolution. Finally, he looked at everyone present, his tone solemn:
"This incident has made me realize something."
Everyone looked at him.
"Ignition isn't the finish line; it's the starting line," Lin Mo said. "This device isn't meant for a single experiment; it's meant to change the world. Therefore, we can't just be satisfied with 'being able to ignite'; we must achieve 'being able to ignite continuously'."
He paused and emphasized his tone:
"From now on, no matter how small the hidden danger is, or how many days are left until ignition, if we find it, we must solve it. This is our bottom line as researchers."
The meeting room was silent for a few seconds.
Then, Chen Xueming was the first to applaud.
Followed by Li Xiao, and then the others.
The applause grew louder and louder, merging into a single wave.
Zhao Gang stood at the door. Although he didn't understand those technical issues, he was touched by the atmosphere and clapped vigorously as well.
When the applause died down, Lin Mo looked at them and suddenly smiled:
"Alright, meeting adjourned. Back to work. There are twenty-six days left until ignition."
That night, Lin Mo stood alone in front of tokamak-3 again.
The moonlight was the same, the wind and sand were the same, and the device was the same.
But he knew that this device was a bit more perfect than it had been three days ago.
Those invisible hidden dangers, those crises that might have erupted someday in the future, had been eliminated in advance.
He reached out and gently touched the familiar pipe.
The metal was cold, but his heart was burning hot.
"See you in twenty-six days," he said softly.
He turned and walked into the night.
Behind him, tokamak-3 stood silently, like a giant about to wake up.