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: Fusion reaction rates
Date: Dec 20, 10:54 am
Poster: Jim Lux

On Dec 20, 10:54 am, Jim Lux wrote:

>OK, so I was wondering, how do you find or calculate neutron rates in a fusor.

The cross sections for the reactions are on my web page at: http://home.earthlink.net/~jimlux/nuc/sigma.htm

You'll have to turn sigma and number density into reaction rates. I'll write that up and post it today.


>
>I was also wondering how do you then take the neutron rate and turn it into fusion reaction rates and then how does that get turned into energy input vs. energy output.

Typically, reaction rates (given as cross sections) are for a single reaction (e.g. D(d,n) => Deuterium, hit by deuteron, producing a neutron), so the neutron rate is the reaction rate for that reaction (this is NOT the "detected" neutron rate, BTW). For a given reaction, the products of the reaction (e.g. the neutron) has a certain energy (2.2 MeV on the average for D(d,n)). The number of reactions times the energy per reaction gives the power output.

In reality, the energies vary somewhat, and there may be more than one fusion reaction possible, each with its own rate, but, when you are looking at large numbers, you can calculate with the mean properties.