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: Fusor uses for microwaves:
Date: Aug 19, 8:13 pm
Poster: Pierce Nichols

On Aug 19, 8:13 pm, Pierce Nichols wrote:

>> Why? Isn't all that matters the impact velocity?
>
>Right, head on impact velocity is what matters. But if the RF frequency is so high that the ions can only move about .015 cm, then the radius of the plasmoid that we are trying to get to collapse (and impact in the center) has to about .015 cm. I expect this is impracticably tiny.

Gotcha. So why don't i just pump up the power to increase the velocity? It will increase the size of the plasmoid while also increasing the probability that any single collision will result in a fusion.


>I just picked what I thought was a reasonable range of diameters for a plasmoid of interest to amateurs. That was max expanded diameter of 7 cm and "crunched" diameter of 1 cm. Then I assumed the average velocity was ½ the velocity of a deuterium ion at 20Kev and that gives me the frequency and wavelength. Expressing ion speed as a % of the speed of light made it simpler for me, but you should get a similar answer by any approach. I think the numbers are about right, but I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a factor 2 somewhere wouldn't mind someone checking them.

Why such low energies? You get real boosts in the size of the fusion region and the number of events by driving the energies much higher. If you carefully phase match several antennae, you could prolly crank peak voltages into the 100s of kV. Without the problems of HV DC...

-p