Search found 261 matches

by Solo
Wed Dec 16, 2015 5:26 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Wendelstein 7-X
Replies: 56
Views: 79378

Re: Wendelstein 7-X

The interesting thing about what they are doing at Auburn is the disruption prevention. Driving the current in a tokamak is one challenge, but that may be partly met by leaning on the bootstrap current to reduce the current drive demand. The other issue is that current disruptions are hazardous and ...
by Solo
Mon Nov 23, 2015 5:38 pm
Forum: News
Topic: EMC2 news
Replies: 440
Views: 453607

Re: EMC2 news

@Dan Tibbets: Nice find! There's more info in that presentation than I saw at Dr. Park's talk here at the UW last year. I'm glad they have done more work to shore up the interpretation of the X-ray blips, but I am still skeptical. For instance, if you look at the purple trace in the figure on slide ...
by Solo
Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:11 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Tokamak Energy news
Replies: 164
Views: 196792

Re: Tokamak Energy news

Says here that (as of last year) the plan was to run DT again in 2017. Here they say that the plan is to produce 15 MW of fusion power in essentially steady state (5 s duration), which is better performance than the previous DT campaign where they achieved 16 MW transiently, but only 4 MW in steady-...
by Solo
Fri Sep 18, 2015 7:54 pm
Forum: News
Topic: General Fusion in the news
Replies: 590
Views: 357565

Re: General Fusion in the news

Crowberry, mvanwink5: you're quite welcome! Unfortunately the presentation was arranged at the last minute, so there was no abstract or videotaping. I think there were nine explosive tests. mvanwink: you jogged my memory, I think the speaker did claim that they were optimistic that with a larger num...
by Solo
Fri Sep 04, 2015 3:45 pm
Forum: News
Topic: General Fusion in the news
Replies: 590
Views: 357565

Re: General Fusion in the news

A GF staff member presented at the UW-Madison plasma physics colloquium yesterday. From memory: *He was focused on plasma injector development. They were getting adiabatic compression up to a point, but as the plasma was focused down at the end of the gun, it did not heat up as much as expected. The...
by Solo
Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:14 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Spherical Tokamaks
Replies: 37
Views: 44493

Re: Spherical Tokamaks

You have to read between the lines a bit to understand this proposal. MIT is going to be forced to shut down C-Mod, their high-field tokamak. They would like to continue by building a new, higher-field tokamak. I'd give both this and the dynomak a snowball's chance in hell of being built in the curr...
by Solo
Tue Dec 16, 2014 6:27 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Siberia)
Replies: 2
Views: 5841

Re: Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (Siberia)

Budker is working on two different linear (magnetic mirror) devices. One is the Gas Dynamic Trap, which is being pitched as a neutron source for a hybrid fission/fusion machine or for fusion material science (wall/blanket testing). It is powered by large neutral beam injectors. It can run in more-or...
by Solo
Mon Nov 24, 2014 4:58 pm
Forum: News
Topic: SpaceX News
Replies: 2324
Views: 1154605

Re: SpaceX News

YUP, they are going to try it mid-Dec: nasaspaceflight.com article
by Solo
Wed Nov 12, 2014 5:08 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Aviation Week on the Lockheed Skunkworks CFR
Replies: 186
Views: 171553

Re: Aviation Week on the Lockheed Skunkworks CFR

lajado: precisely. One senior professor remarked (and I wish I could find the reference now :( ) that the design seemed to be ignoring some fundamental plasma physics, but that it is difficult to tell anything from the limited amount of information. Evidently, McGuire's thesis was on a topic somewha...
by Solo
Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:27 am
Forum: News
Topic: Aviation Week on the Lockheed Skunkworks CFR
Replies: 186
Views: 171553

Re: Aviation Week on the Lockheed Skunkworks CFR

So word through the grape vine at the recent APS meeting is that this project was about to get shut down by Lockheed-Martin, and the publicity stunt was an effort to secure some extra funding and/or an internal-politics move to keep them from being de-funded. Makes sense now.
by Solo
Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:22 am
Forum: News
Topic: Anyone see the Polywell at APS or IAEA 2014?
Replies: 2
Views: 5922

Re: Anyone see the Polywell at APS or IAEA 2014?

I was at APS, I don't recall there being a Polywell presentation. Also, no search results on the APS meeting website either.
by Solo
Thu Oct 23, 2014 3:20 am
Forum: News
Topic: Aviation Week on the Lockheed Skunkworks CFR
Replies: 186
Views: 171553

Re: Aviation Week on the Lockheed Skunkworks CFR

With mechanical supports for the coils, this idea is dead in the water. You cannot get 'recirculation' that way. All the plasma on the field lines that pass outside those 'internal' rings can ExB or grad-B drift around azimuthally until it collides with the stub and is lost. So you basically turn it...
by Solo
Thu Sep 18, 2014 5:11 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Small Tri Alpha news blurp
Replies: 250
Views: 255902

Re: Small Tri Alpha news blurp

I'll be there. They've evidently made some gains in the lifetime of the FRC, but it's still dying quickly due to rapid losses, despite the large amount of injected neutral beam power. They plan to add more, but I am skeptical of how much it will buy them in performance. They are beginning to charact...
by Solo
Wed Aug 13, 2014 3:26 pm
Forum: News
Topic: General Fusion talk at TEDxKC
Replies: 9
Views: 9665

Re: General Fusion talk at TEDxKC

I have it from a reliable source that the explosive tests are continuing, in parallel with some electromagnetic implosions. The implosions have not so far been able to maintain the plasma while compressing it, and it's hard to tell what's going wrong since diagnosis of the implosion is difficult. Se...
by Solo
Mon Jun 23, 2014 2:30 pm
Forum: General
Topic: Could this be the Lockheed-Martin design?
Replies: 6
Views: 8466

Re: Could this be the Lockheed-Martin design?

That's pretty much the conclusion I came to as well, based on the limited evidence at hand.