Fusion Message Board

In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.

Subject: Re: Cross sectional collision energy
Date: Mar 08, 7:12 pm
Poster: Jim Lux

On Mar 08, 7:12 pm, Jim Lux wrote:

>
>>Interestingly, if you average all the beams together, the average eV energy (expressed as eV, not velocity) is about 1.14 times the accelerating voltage (assuming all the ions are created at the outer grid/shell)..
>>
>>So.. as a practical matter, I'd say you should just go into the tables with your accelerating voltage.
>
>>
>>Richard, how do your measured rates compare with theoretical expectations?
>
>********************************
>
>I am sure the measured rates precisely equal theoretical concerns.

<<< big snip here>>>

>
>I don't calculate what will happen. I measure what does happen.
>
>Based on the total current, ideal situations and physically measured performance, 4X10e5 deuterons make the nuclear zygote run successfully each second. This is out of a total ionic "wad" of 6x10e16 deuterons. (again, ideally)
>


Not so much the actual neuts vs the the theoretical, but the change in neuts vs voltage.. In theory, as the voltage goes up, you pass the resonance peak for the head on collisions (aka beam/beam) , while still climbing the peak for the ion to neutral collisions (beam/body), so by looking at where the peak occurs, you should be able to tell whether the dominant mechanism is "beam to beam" or "beam to body"....

Of course, for DD, I just figured out that you need to run about 500 kV to 2 Megavolts into your fusor, which doesn't seem very practical. However, if someone is running DT, the peak is MUCH lower, and actually within the realm of possibility (should start to flatten out around 30-40 kV). Much more detail, and some pretty plots, at

http://home.earthlink.net/~jimlux/nuc/sigma2.htm

There ARE other ways to figure out how many of the deuterons are ionized and which way they are moving though (e.g. doppler broadening of the spectral lines of the emitted light), but they are, shall we say, somewhat challenging to implement.