Few ideas from a newbie

It may be difficult to separate "theory" from "application," but let''s see if this helps facilitate the discussion.
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kojikun
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Few ideas from a newbie

Post by kojikun »

I have a few ideas for IEC reactors. Testing is encouraged, as I myself cannot yet do such.

# Tuned electromagnetic compression

TEC would involve ion confinement similar to that in particle accelerators and tokamaks. The magnet would oscillate in synch with the protons within the chamber. As the protons head in for collision the magnets would begin confinement and reach maximum compression just as the protons reach collision. The magnet then immediately reverses polarity so as to pull the protons out. Power is now steadilly decreased until the protons reach maximum height above/away from the impact region and the magnets reverse polarity and the cycle repeats.

# Multicavity IEC Accelerator

MIECA is another take from particle accelerators. In this idea you would have multiple grids of successive size, like present grids. These would each be charged in a positive-negative fashion like a LinAc's cavities are. The electricity would need to be of an optimum frequency to ensure that the protons ride the waves of electrostatic fields otherwise you would get a bunching-clustering effect like in a klystron. The benefit of this multicavity design, however, is that every time the protons pass a grid they increase their energy by N eV. For instance, if you have 5 cavities each with two grids and an input voltage of 10KV, the protons have final impact energy of 10KeV * 10 or 100KeV. This method is good because it requires less input voltage. It might also be possible to attain fusion in a LINEAR IEC chamber. In such a chamber the impact region would be a plain perpendicular to the length of the pipe/tube. The grids would also be perpendicular. They would charge so that the fusion fuel is accelerated towards the impact region in the center. This design has the advantage of allowing for significantly higher numbers of cavs without significantly larger volumes. If the cav grids are spaced 4-5 cm apart, a 38 cavity, 40 grid tube would be a mere 2 metres long. This linear multicav design, however, requires twice the number of grids as a spherican multicav (because you need to accelerate the fuel from BOTH sides of the chamber). However, it still saves significant space (and cost) compared to a spherical design. The above cav-per-side design would a fuel energy of 380KeV. Thats with 10KV electricity input. With 30KV input you would get 1.14MeV fuel energy. The reason you get such high energies is because each half of the chamber has 20 grids, and therefore 19 cavities per half for a total of 38 cavities total. Each cavitiy adds the input voltage (10 and 30 in this scenario) to the fuel. 38*10KeV = 380KeV; 38*30KeV = 1,140KeV.

# Multicavity Electromagnetic Compression

MEC = TEC + MIECA. I think you get the point. Couple the high compression pressures of TEC IEC chambers with the high fuel energies in the MIECA chamber.

(note: one cavity is taken here to mean two grids. three grids would be 2 cavities and 4 grids would be 3 cavs. simply subtract 1 from the number of grids to get the number of cavities in a spherical chamber, subtract 2 for the number of cavs in a tube)

WARNING!:

The MIECA designs will GUARANTEED result in extremely energetic XRays and probably gamma rays thanks to both particle collision with the grids as well as synchrotron radiation because of acceleration. I recommend anyone daring to build a MIECA learn as much possible about particle accelerators and associated safety. You should also contact your states radiation control bureau unless you want the cops to raid your house and confiscate/destroy your just completed breakeven-and-then-some fusion reactor.

Its also VERY much adviced that you put general confinement magnets around the entire tube because if you dont you'll loose lots of energy in collisions with the chamber wall (both from heat transfer as well as xray and gamma radiation).

Another piece of advice is to actively cool the beam tube. Water cooling would be good, liquid nitrogen cooling would be better.

..

Can you tell I'm insane? Hah. :)

just for precautions: above (C) 02003, me. If it works I don't need anyone stealing my fusion reactor! LOL
hellblazer
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by hellblazer »

Insanity rules.
kojikun
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by kojikun »

Thanks. :)

I hope the designs do indeed work. They require a lot of energy, but not a tremendous amount. Compared to the energies required by larger IC and MC machines, this would be a drop in the ocean.

The MIECA design probably is the best of the first two simply because of the low input power and high fuel energy. It will also achieve much greater pressures then standard IEC reactors because of the higher energyes. if a typical reactor gets 30-60KeV fuel energy, a multiple cavity design with the same input will get atleast 120-360KeV energy. Thats atleast 4 times the energy and thusly 4 times the pressure. All for the same input power. The more cavitations used the higher the energy and pressure for the same power.

The designs could offer a potentially enormous jump in power output and might make fusion power a reality. I hope. :)
grrr6
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by grrr6 »

The only hard part would be tuning the frequency, and tuning the spacing between cavities(as you get to higher energies, you need higher spacing) If you could tune it just right, then you would be in the clear, and have high energy particle beams.
And, if you are using a +/- supply, you will get twice the peak to peak voltage, so in reality, at 10 kv, you are accelerating with close to 20 kv.
kojikun
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by kojikun »

greg, yes tuning is an issue. you would need RF electricity. essentially MIECA is two particle accelerators pushing more-then-normal fuel. You would essentially need the "grids" to be 1 wavelength apart.

And the power supply was addressed in the original post. its necessary to have a changing polarity in the MIECA design. All IEC reactors produce double the input voltage because you have particles colliding from opposing sides of the chamber so their energies add (if the input voltage is 30KV the protons collide with a total energy of 60KeV)

the thing with the MIECA design is that you're using many grids to accelerate the fuel instead of just two. Whereass a 100KV-in IEC reactor with 2 grids get's 200KeV protons, a 30KV-in spherical MIECA reactor with 4 grids gets 210KeV protons.

For MIECAs its probably best to use tubes as the chamber, because that requires less space then a sphere.

The difference in energies is startling, one requires 100KV input and the other requires 30KV input, and yet the proton energy is GREATER in the 30KV version. The only real problem is, like you pointed out, the frequency.

If my knowledge about such things is correct, the wavelength of 2.45 GHz microwaves (like in your microwave oven) is 12.5cm. If you used a magnetron to power the tube, the grids would need to be 12.5cm/4.9in apart. This would be like the tube in the MIECA example in the first post. The only difference is, the powersource isnt pumping out 30KV. You would need to somehow get 30KV at 2.45 GHz frequency.

However, I could be wrong about the above and probably am. The reason is that the protons arent necessarily going to go zoming down the cavities at lightspeed. They probably will not get much near C at all, which means youd need lower frequencies for a given cavity size. The frequency would optimally be (s/d) Hz where s = speed of the protons and d = distance between two grids. This allows you to figure out how many times a second the protons would pass through said grid seperation. That number would also give you the optimal frequency of a (constant frequency) accelerator tube. The only problem with this I can see is that if the protons are accelerating, the frequency must raise in order to make up for the lowered time between grids.
grrr6
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by grrr6 »

No, with double the peak to peak voltage from the opposite polarities, you get double the energy on each particle. So with one grid, at 30 kv, you are pumping out 60 keV deuts, protons, or whatevers, so when they collide head on with another 60 keV duet, you have a total collisional energy of 120 keV.
In all liniacs the spacing of the cavity increases as you go down the tube, because as the particle accelerates, it covers more ground at a given switching frequency. With electrons this happens quickly, levels out once you get relativistic. With deuts you wont get relativistic, so the spacing should increase by a set amount each time, dependant upon applied voltage and frequency (and particle mass, but that will be essentially constant with a given fill)
DaveC
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by DaveC »

I think there may be some other practical issues, too. The size of your device could get pretty large, unless you have in mind some sort of linear configuration. If the grids are close together, you will need to have a very high frequency RF source at the accelerating potential. Not a show stopper, per se, but a serious piece of gear, nonetheless.

Interesting concept though, needing a bench model to test it out.

Dave Cooper
kojikun
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by kojikun »

Greg, I dont follow. If youre saying that 30KV input gives you 120KeV collision energy youre wrong. The potential difference between two plates with 30KV input is 30KV, not 60KV. Take a look here: http://www-bd.fnal.gov/public/electronvolt.html

Fermi Lab (which has the worlds most powerful accelerator) defines an electron volt as "the kinetic energy gained by an electron passing through a potential difference of one volt". So if two grids have 30KV input the difference is 30KV and the energy of any particle passing from one grid to the other is 30KeV. If you have particles accelerating from two sets of grids towards one another, their voltages add and for the 30KV input you'd get 60KeV impact energy.

Dave, the size may be large, but for an equivalent energy IEC reactor its smaller (in terms of powersupply etc). To get fusion from an IEC reactor you need lots of power in, but from a MIECA you dont need as much because the energy of impact is much greater due to multiple acceleration cavities. I've seen proposed chambers over 1 metre in diameter, where it would be much simpler to build a smaller chamber with more grids and special circuits. Besides, spherical chambers are hard to make without custom ordering it, while cylindrical multicav chambers would be childs play to even the newest experimenter. The real issue is, ofcourse, the circuitry, as you stated. I believe it might be possible to get the appropriate frequency by using radio oscillators as the control for a power amplifier which would feed a simple voltage transformer. Gregs right tho, the further along the tube the greater the distance between any two grids with a fixed frequency input. If the frequency increased with the fuel speed it would mean the chamber could be smaller.

Really I think a MIECA design would be much better then a standard IEC reactor. It offers much higher impact energies with very little extra equipment. In a real powerstation such things would be so trivial as to be overlooked in the design process until the very end when the engineers go "oh yeah, we need an RF source. hows this one" and then he picks up a circuit board from a junk box.

Anyone know if its feasible to use a walkie-talky as the RF source and an amplifier to boost power? someone should really look into building a MIECA (someone aside from me :p)
grrr6
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by grrr6 »

you get two times the energy from an rf source because, as the particle is positively charged it will accelerate towards the negative electrode, and pass through, 30 keV. Then, as it is passing through, you switch the voltage to positive, and you are giving it an extra 30 kv push from the behind, giving each grid double the energy to 60 keV, because the polarity is reversing. If you were using ulsed dc(i dont know why you would) you would get the output voltage, no more. But because it is ac, you get double the peak to peak voltage, hence double the energy as any one output peak. So the feedthroughs will be easier to get, since if you wanted two stages, at an output of 100 keV, you would only need a peak voltage of 25 kV. 2 x 2 stages
r_c_edgar
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by r_c_edgar »

It's a question of reference frame... Imagine two deuterons headed straight toward each other after a 30kv acceleration (each). From the lab reference frame (center-of-mass reference frame), each particle has a kinetic energy of 30kev. On the other hand, from the reference frame of Particle A, it is standing still and Particle B is coming head-on at 120kev (velocities add linearly, and doubling the velocity quadruples kinetic energy). For cross sections, the reference frame of interest is the particle reference frame.

This does not violate conservation of energy, which applies to a fixed inertial reference frame (says nothing about the relation between total observed energy in different reference frames).

This is why all the biggest particle accelerators collide particle beams head on, as opposed to firing them at targets!

--Ryan
kojikun
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by kojikun »

ok i see what your talking about greg. i thought you were talking about straight DC :) this doesnt affect MIECAs tho, because they use they use this. regular IEC reactors have at most 2x the input voltage tho, because theres no switching across multiple cavities.
kojikun
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Re: Few ideas from a newbie

Post by kojikun »

ok, heres a pic comparing spherical reactors and linear MIECA reactors;

edit:: i forgot to add the final compression stage in the MIECA design. there should be an extra step where the polarities reverse again so the inner grids are positive which would crush the protons together.
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Spherical_vs_MIECA.jpg
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