General Fusion in the news

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

http://www.generalfusion.com/blog/categ ... in-a-name/
General Fusion has designed, constructed, and tested a number of plasma systems over the years,

Recently we’ve finished work with a series of smaller scale systems which were named Magnetized Ring Test.

Recently we began developing a new plasma system with some significant changes to the plasma test chamber, particularly a quasi-spherical geometry that more closely matches what we expect in the core of our power plant.

We’re now constructing our first SPhErical Compact TORoid system, or SPECTOR. SPECTOR (the name) caught on quickly, both internally and with our external research partners as well.

There was an intermediate system, one where we first tested out some of the changes we were planning to incorporate in SPECTOR.
Some nice color schematics of their two plasma test systems. I have doubts that the new one, the spherical compact toroid system, will be reported on in their upcoming presentation. A shame really.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

nferguso
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by nferguso »

As described by General Fusion, the power plant they are developing will literally be a steampunk nuclear reactor. Fusion will be triggered by an imploding shock wave created by a spherical array of steam powered pistons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GyPnoNaiIM Yet as anachronistic as it sounds, the design is in my opinion the most elegant of all the fusion reactor concepts I can think of.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

General Fusion will appear at the next ASP event. Michel Delage will participate in the panel discussion on Hill Briefing: Understanding What’s Next in Fusion Energy on the 15th of December.
Understanding What’s Next in Fusion Energy will be held Tuesday, December 15 in Russell 385 from 12:00pm – 1:30pm. This event will be an opportunity for leaders in fusion energy from the private sector and research labs to discuss the significant progress made in advancing fusion and what this clean, safe, and abundant energy source means for America’s national security and energy future.

Leading experts in fusion from the public and private sector will discuss the new developments that have been featured over the last several months in major media outlets like Time Magazine, the New York Times, Science, and Nature. ASP is the leading think tank detailing a plan for the future of fusion. We are excited to facilitate a greater understanding this complex but revolutionary energy source.
Panel Includes:

Moderator: Mr. Andrew Holland

Panelists:
Dr. Dennis Whyte
Mr. Michael Delage
Dr. Douglas Witherspoon
http://www.americansecurityproject.org/ ... on-energy/

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

Another crowd source contest from General Fusion with reward of $20k for the winner:

http://www.generalfusion.com/blog/categ ... rformance/
http://www.generalfusion.com/blog/categ ... ntal-data/
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

Assessment of the Effects of Azimuthal Mode Number Perturbations upon the Implosion Processes of Fluids in Cylinders
by Michael Lindstrom is a paper on arxiv reporting on results on simplified modelling of the General Fusion reactor.
Fluid instabilities arise in a variety of contexts and are often unwanted results of engineering imperfections. In one particular model for a magnetized target fusion reactor, a pressure wave is propagated in a cylindrical annulus comprised of a dense fluid before impinging upon a plasma and imploding it. Part of the success of the apparatus is a function of how axially-symmetric the final pressure pulse is upon impacting the plasma. We study a simple model for the implosion of the system to study how imperfections in the pressure imparted on the outer circumference grow due to geometric focusing. Our methodology entails linearizing the compressible Euler equations for mass and momentum conservation about a cylindrically symmetric problem and analyzing the perturbed profiles at different mode numbers. The linearized system gives rise to singular shocks and through analyzing the perturbation profiles at various times, we infer that high mode numbers are dampened through the propagation. We also study the Linear Klein-Gordon equation in the context of stability of linear cylindrical wave formation whereby highly oscillatory, bounded behaviour is observed in a far field solution.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.01865

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

6 Summary and Future Outlook
This work suggests that having on the order of 100 pistons in the MTF nuclear reactor design of General Fusion [7] is a promising strategy for reducing unwanted effects of asymmetries: perturbations induced by low azimuthal mode numbers, besides m = 0 which do not contribute to asymmetric distortions, do propagate but the higher mode numbers tend to dissipate through the focusing thereby extinguishing their effects. The work presented in [10] suggests that the high mode numbers are more problematic in the context of nuclear fusion. The study just cited explored the interaction of the molten metal and the plasma with azimuthal perturbations beginning when the molten metal and plasma interact; it was found that high azimuthal mode numbers cause the greatest problems for plasma-metal interactions, resulting in mixing, and low mode numbers pose little problem. From this we can infer, based on this current work, a positive outlook for the reactor design.
We would like to acknowledge a number of limitations to the current model, which should be considered carefully in interpreting these results...
So, with simplified modeling (because modeling equations and solutions are so difficult) there seems to be some promise, but take it with a block of salt.

Not to worry though, adiabatic plasma compression is not solved yet either, see above crowd sourced contest by brave souls for $20k.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

The General Fusion presentation at EPR 2016 is available with a good overview of where they are currently.
Acoustically driven Magnetized Target Fusion at General Fusion
Author: Michel Laberge

Abstract
Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) involves compressing an initial magnetically confined plasma of about 1e23 m-3, 100 eV, 7 Tesla, 20 cm radius, >100 microseconds life with a 1000 X volume compression in 100 microseconds. If near adiabatic compression is achieved, the final plasma of ~1e26 m-3, 10 keV, 700 Tesla, 2 cm radius, confined for 10 microseconds would produce interesting fusion energy gain. General Fusion is developing an acoustic compression system using pneumatic pistons focusing a shock wave on the plasma in the center of a 3 m diameter sphere filled with liquid lead-lithium. Low cost driver, straightforward heat extraction, good tritium breeding ratio and excellent neutron protection could lead to a practical power plant. We will review the plasma formation and compression results achieved so far and our plans moving forwards. Work on the compression system will also be described.
This is their conclusion slide from their presentation.
Conclusion
• We can make pre-compression plasma with sufficient confinement
• We solved death by radiation from impurities
• We now go MHD unstable under compression both with spheromak and tokamak
• We have some tokamak configurations that on the computer compress 13:1 and remain MHD stable
• Presently building a more self similar compression machine
• Designing PI3, more density and magnetic field
• Will implode PI3 with new more self similar compression to high DD yield
http://www.iccworkshops.org/epr2016/abs ... p?view=419

ladajo
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by ladajo »

We now go MHD unstable under compression both with spheromak and tokamak
What a surprise.
We have some tokamak configurations that on the computer compress 13:1 and remain MHD stable
I can make a pig fly on my computer.

I sincerely doubt they will ever be able to use the compression methodology they propose and retain stability. There is too much that is unclear about MHD stability that the most expensive and powerful M&Ss have been able to crack.

There is so much potential for GF to run into the "we don't know what we don't know" road block.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

mvanwink5
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by mvanwink5 »

The issue is stability under compression, all their code has been backed up with testing under the dynamics of compression. I wonder if they have incorporated what was recently learned about electron plasma vs ion plasma (for tokamaks)?
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

The interesting thing to see is whether the magnetic field will help or not during the compression. The targeted initial field of 7 T is already quite strong compared to ordinary tokamaks and a peak field of 670 T would be very strong indeed. Of course there is the all the issues with the initial conditions of the compression, but GF seems to have learned some tricks with smoothing the vortex surface.

ladajo
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by ladajo »

but GF seems to have learned some tricks with smoothing the vortex surface.
In Sim world. Until they do real work with real plasma, it is all speculation on their part.
Although, I must admit, redoing spherical compression blasts with analogs must be fun. Although, why they are not using long standing pre-existing work from the old weapons programs is beyond me.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

ladajo wrote:
but GF seems to have learned some tricks with smoothing the vortex surface.
In Sim world. Until they do real work with real plasma, it is all speculation on their part.
I was referring to page 6 of the EPR 2016 slideset, which shows a water vortex with and without surface waves. So they are not only doing simulations.
ladajo wrote: Although, I must admit, redoing spherical compression blasts with analogs must be fun. Although, why they are not using long standing pre-existing work from the old weapons programs is beyond me.
It is because those results are still classified. In this article http://www.cap.ca/sites/cap.ca/files/ar ... ardson.pdf Doug Richardson writes the following:
Furthermore, General Fusion is undertaking low cost chemically driven experiments to rapidly compress a magnetized plasma target. The literature discusses such tests; however,we have found no experimental results in open publications [20,21] .
...
21. F. Wysocki et al., “Progress with small, high-magnetic-field spheromaks in CTX”, 11th US/Japan Workshop on Field-Reversed Configurations and Compact Toroids, Los Alamos (1989).
22. D. Dudzick, “Nucleonic aspects of the LINUS imploding blanket”, ANS Topical Meeting (1978).

paperburn1
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by paperburn1 »

A large portion of that work might not be available to them, after all that's how you make really bright flashes of light. :)
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

crowberry
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by crowberry »

General Fusion Awarded $12.75 Million From Sustainable Development Technology Canada

BURNABY, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 4, 2016) - Innovative cleantech company General Fusion has been awarded $12.75 million by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to continue developing its fusion energy technology, culminating in the design of a full-scale fusion energy demonstration system.

The grant, announced today by the federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Hon. Navdeep Bains in Edmonton, is part of a 36-project, $206 million package of funds designed to help cleantech companies bridge the gap between research and commercialization.

The grant is staged across a number of milestones and requires an investment of matching funds equal to twice the amount of the grant. To date, General Fusion has raised more than $100 million from a global syndicate of investors. This is the second major grant from SDTC, the first an award of $13.9 million in 2009.
http://www.marketwired.com/press-releas ... 103037.htm

ladajo
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Re: General Fusion in the news

Post by ladajo »

Amazing that Canada can support small scale fusion, but we can't. Pitiful.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

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