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: Are we really at 80 keV effective energy?
Date: Jun 09, 7:58 pm
Poster: Mark Sloan

On Jun 09, 7:58 pm, Mark Sloan wrote:

>Perhaps everybody else is clear on this. But I went through the following to try to figure things out and thought there might be someone interested.

Applying conservation of momentum to the collision:

If two equal momentum deuterons collide head on in the center of your fusor, the net momentum of the products of the reaction is zero. This means that all the kinetic energy (40 KEV = 2 X 20KEV for two 20KEV deuterons) is theoretically available to drive the desired fusion reaction and none is "wasted" conserving momentum of the potential products.

But, if a high-speed deuteron collides with a stationary deuteron, then the net momentum of the products of the reaction still must equal the momentum coming in. So some (50%) of the energy is "wasted" in giving the potential reaction products the same momentum (with1/2 the incoming velocity but twice the mass) as the incoming single deuteron. So energy available to drive the desired fusion reaction would be only 10 KEV = .5 * 20KEV for a 20KEV deuteron hitting a stationary one.

I agree that fusion reactions can be driven much more efficiently (factor of 4 for the example above) by seeking to collide "head on" high-energy (equal momentum) particles than by randomly colliding particles of widely varying energies.

In the past, I've been wondering if that kind of non-random collision was your goal, and it sounds like it may be based on you naming it the SPHERICAL ION-DEUTERON ACCELERATOR-COLLIDER. (SIDAC)
.

What do you think is the true state of affairs in the fusors you are making? Are your deuterons colliding in standard random thermal distributions of energy and random velocity vectors (just a hot compressed gas)? Or are significant numbers colliding with similar energies with velocity vectors all pointing through the center to increase the number of head-on collisions (more favorable for fusion)?