Talk-Polywell.org

With no reactant flow the pressure in the reactor is 1E-9 torr aprox. To keep it steady (with pumps operating) requires flow. Most of that flow is not going to be reacted. So you collect the output of the pumps and recycle it. So start with the pB11 fuel cycle and introduce small bits of the DHe3 c...

A 100 MWth reactor produces about 1 Kg a day of He. Useful stuff He. Continuous flow of reactants means it is probably worthwhile to collect the Hydrogen/Deuterium coming out of the reactor. After all you paid to purify it. Why not recycle it? Burn both pB11 and the fraction of recycled DHe3 at the...

A 100 MWth reactor produces about 1 Kg a day of He. Useful stuff He. Continuous flow of reactants means it is probably worthwhile to collect the Hydrogen/Deuterium coming out of the reactor. After all you paid to purify it. Why not recycle it? Burn both pB11 and the fraction of recycled DHe3 at the...

Interesting EETimes article outlining a refereed article in Science this week; German and Canadian researchers have discovered superconductivity in silane (SiH4) at 17K and 96 and 120 GPa. It is theoretically possible that silane may be a superconductor at sufficient pressure at room temperature. N...

I have been doing some thinking about a 6 GW unit. I think it would require a significant jump in super conductor technology and heat transfer. LH as reaction mass may be a requirement. May depend on the intended use. A planetary-only civilian suborb transport might be able to use a far smaller rea...

This might interest you if you haven't seen it before. IEC and CBFR drives are both mentioned. http://www.k-meyl.de/go/65_Sekundaerliteratur/NASA-Advanced_Energetics_for_Aeronautical_Applications_Vol2.pdf Interesting. Here is the full document: http://tinyurl.com/34xrve Section 2.4 is especially in...

I'm working on my PhD in aerospace engineering right now. LOL! (glyph of whip cracking). :D Good to know we have someone with high skill in the matter. Actually most of my knowledge is quite new; I've been looking stuff up as fast as I can think of it, and there will be gaps in my knowledge. But my...

This topic has been discussed before. Firstly, the sample design that Mr Bussard actually proposed: http://www.longwood.edu/chemistry/Students/indstud/Inertial_Electrodynamic_Fusion_Compr.ppt Actually the original raster-scan concept is from an older paper, not one on the askmar site. I think I've ...

How? This is air at hypersonic speed, and you're trying to heat it with a heat exchanger? We have enough trouble doing it with hydrogen combustion, as you pointed out with that 'scamjet' crack... A heat exchanger hot enough to do it would be similar to the 'big glowing panels' idea but with the add...

But then he started complaining about ozone production, and that design doesn't really have any way to dump the heat from the reactor (unless you want to go with my big glowing panels idea). Its similar to QED/ARC. Dump the heat into the working remass. Furthermore, that drive only works at hyperso...

Polywell is out of the bag. It might take 5 to 10 years to reproduce it independent of a government, but it could be done with a team of about 10 to 100. Possibly. The growing surveillance society in the First World would clamp down on that in the EU, US and Japan/ANZAC. Tho I agree you're right in...

Supersonic combustion ramjets have pathetic thrust per unit fuel flow. The airstream is so fast already that adding extra energy (which is tough at that speed) doesn't result in much momentum transfer. The high thrust he's talking about is probably the rocket start. I would expect a QED scramjet to...

As for workers working only for food and room, get that idea out right NOW. We are talking about engineers and physicist with PhDs and the like, not to mention potential illegality of this idea. Illegality?? People can work for whatever they agree to. And stock options have tangible value. Plenty o...

I wouldn't go far as they alone funding the thing. But I'm willing to bet that we can get support from them. Yeah that is what I had figured as well. I wasn't trying to imply they would fund the whole thing, but if they were able to raise that much money for a TV show I would think we could get som...

Certainly an enthusiastic and money-willing funding base. Especially if there's reasonable hope of success. Their involvement might create later bad impressions tho. Target fen locations? Fan websites, conventions, etc? Quick overview of the polywell/IEC concept, odds of success, and a direct paypal...