Disaster on the ESLA project

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Dennis P Brown
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Disaster on the ESLA project

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Figures,I was gonna try the electro-static linear accelerator (ESLA) this weekend with the weak but working Van de Graaff (VdG) and bumped the sphere holding the deuteron gun and the main tube snapped at its vacuum connector, fell off its stand/support (knew I needed a ring mount!), and the broken tube (very end piece) allowed the rest of the tube assembly to fall to the table top causing this large piece to break into three more pieces! A year's work lost (well, that time also includes a lot of R&D which I learned and profit from.) Of course, I seriously doubt I would have seen a beam this weekend (but stranger stuff can happen) but my carelessness puts an end to that idea.

In any case, I will continue with the VdG work and even get a replacement one to test; however, an accelerator tube rebuild is not in the works until late this fall at the earliest due to other pressing projects that were on the back burner - one of which has now become critical for my possible success: the Navy Rail Gun program program requested a sample of my revolutionary super armour (developed during my personal thesis ten years ago) for testing (this armor is five times lighter than Chobham for equal protection against all known hyper velocity kinetic, armor piercing and molten plasma jet weapons! and far, far easier to make - I do it in my basement!!! lol. Its abstract is on-line: just use key words cermet, thesis and my name - not exactly fun reading, though.)

I had provided a very large sample to the navy people but now they want more for another rail gun system - I've waited too long to do this so that now becomes priority #1.

Of course, I would like to build a fusor (have all the parts and an under wattage 40 kV power supply that could maybe create detectable neutrons - have my doubts, though - and since I now have a deuterium gas supply and high vacuum system suddenly unused and available (ugh), I will consider throwing that together that some future time (have a small chamber with some flanges (no HV feed through, though ... .) Again, only after the armor project is completed.

Will not be posting very much (except comments) for a while until I have time to get back to the ESLA ...the new tube, when made, will have proper support ring(s)! LOL
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Noah C Hoppis
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Re: Disaster on the ESLA project

Post by Noah C Hoppis »

Well, murphy was right again, I can't count the number of projects I've worked on that in the final stages broke/fell over and of exploded. Best of luck with the rebuild!
"No missile ever flew before 10 pm"
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Disaster on the ESLA project

Post by Chris Bradley »

I'm sorry to hear of this incident, and it is a cautionary tale to those building such experiments that deviate from a 'known recipe'.

I was nauseously over-protective of my set up in terms of making sure I put in place additional procedures and sacrificial parts in the event of any one-point failures. Many of the parts I have assembled were cheaply acquired, but irreplaceable because I had built and adapted the setup around these parts I have scrounged. The more a setup becomes dependent on an earlier 'part', the more essential that part becomes and the more you need to do to protect it.

In your case, I would have encased the tube in a perspex tube and fixed it so that the tube itself held the minimal mechanical loading it could. That's one quite good general rule, imho - if a part is not there to sustain a mechanical load but is there for some [other] technical purpose then fit other parts designed to take the mechanical load of that part. This is a general point about all vacuum fittings in that if you can remove the mechanical loading on a vacuum joint then it is better to do that than, for example, having a chamber hanging off the physical strength of that joint without anything else supporting the chamber.
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Disaster on the ESLA project

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Mr Bradley you are 100% correct! Both the design (which weaken the main accelerator tube and placed severe stress on the tube) and not properly protecting the tube led to my undoing. I will rebuild the device at some point in the not too distant future but (aside from my whining) really must get all my other projects back on track first. In any case, your advice is sound and both appreciated and will be followed. As Mr. Hoppis said, what can go wrong ...and especially for a complex and delicate project like an accelerator, does go wrong (lol! and thank you for kind words!) So I will be extra careful in all the projects but especially this one, once I rebuild some type of accelerator tube again - not clear on the design but will carefully think it over. At least it gives me the excuses to readdress and fix a few problems with both the shielding and Van de Graaff system that have bothered me.
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