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: High pressure D2 fusion
Date: Oct 27, 8:29 am
Poster: Richard Hull

On Oct 27, 8:29 am, Richard Hull wrote:

>>What about using a very(!) short pulse of voltage (not what's going on here) that doesn't allow a glow discharge or arc to develop (which takes some time...). ...........................................................
>However,if the pulse were quite long, and held its potential, the sheer volume of charge in motion, would create a conducting channel. The big question appears to be whether the ion mobility can remain high enough to acquire 20 kev.
>

I see both Dave and Jim offer good thought on the issue and this just might work if a the numbers look good. The key, as mentioned, is to settle on a pressure and then figure out how to impart 40KEV on the particle within its mean free path based on that pressure. Remember we will have to get a lot more energy per particle in a simple lamp than the fusor due to the total random, unfocused motion of the particles.

This idea might do better in a true fusor due to the energy multiplication via the optimium head on collisional nature of the fusor. I believe we have covered this basic idea before, but it would do well to play with the concept a bit more.

The problem in the amateur area is how to be count the neutrons??!! If the scheme works at all, the pulses will be necessarily short and the peak pulse power very high. Noise will flood any amateur measurement device. If we assume that the flux will be horrendous (quite and assumption) and the rep rate decent, Indium activation might be the only way to get a crude handle on the output of such a device. I like the UV pre-excitation idea, although a few microampere pre-glow discharge state might be setup permenantly to establish decent kinetic energy levels and put the particles on the move in the right direction, whereas uv would make the motion random. I would think that it would be better to have all motion at least started in the right direction prior to the big shot.

Richard Hull