Bussard's Polywell patent application is finally dead.

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

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Joseph Chikva
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Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:30 am

Re: Bussard's Polywell patent application is finally dead.

Post by Joseph Chikva »

Robthebob wrote:1. So it's good you defined the location, so it's a local beta. You run into problems going from machines to machines, because different machines have different designs. The family of donut machines, generally defining beta at the plasma edge is reasonable. However, once you start looking at beta in other designs, it's not good to compare them. I'll let the sloopy language go, because you did say it's impossible for beta to go above one for any machine, which you didnt specify how you defined beta.

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4. Beam compression machines, or as they're commonly (but incorrectly named) inertial fusion, using beams of laser or particles to compress to fusion. They have no magnetic field, because they dont operate like that. Their time scale and configuration also makes it that the MHD picture doesnt do much good.
I see that man even not knowing half a year ago that current in TOKAMAKs not always an induced current today is thinking up a new terms.
Please define yourself what beta is. Local and whatever else. Thanks in advance.

"Incorrectly named" inertial confinement? Not interesting by whom?
For example by these authors? (see below):
• Keith A. Brueckner (Author), K. Brueckner (Editor), S. W. Haan (Editor), Inertial Confinement Fusion
• Susanne Pfalzner, An Introduction to Inertial Confinement Fusion
• James J. Duderstadt, Gregory A. Moses, Inertial confinement fusion
Or may be you have made a havier contribution in fusion researches granting you a right to think up a new terms? And people should accept your terms?

Robthebob
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Location: Auburn, Alabama

Re: Bussard's Polywell patent application is finally dead.

Post by Robthebob »

Beta is a number, and I know what it is, the problem is, do you know what it is. You said no machine can ever have beta greater than 1, and that's a false statement. So I'm asking you how do you define beta, which you did, that solves some of the issues, but not entirely, because as I said before, different machines care about different things, the number beta means very little or very different things in various machines, but you can still calculate it.

Your understanding of beta not able to be greater than 1 is true only in certain classes of machines, within those classes of machines, they hold comparative meanings. While in some other machines, beta means nothing or it means very different things. I'm simply pointing out your statement is false at worst and not really true at best. Even within magnetic confinement, very different machines, their betas shouldnt be compared.

I think polywell's beta is calculated at the Wiffleball edge, which is somewhat unfair if compared to the beta of donut machines is calculated at the plasma edge, but the field is weaker at the plasma edge of donut machines, while the field at the Wiffleball edge is strong, due to field compression.

I dont know how you dont know what inertial confinement fusion is, it is second most mainstream approach to fusion energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_c ... ent_fusion

Names are names, the name inertial confinement fusion isnt every good, and the name is like that because of history; it was just named that to begin with. I dont really want to have to explain to you about silly things like names, but okay.

What does inertial confinement mean? It means using the motion of the plasma itself to perform the confinement, but other approaches have also use motion to perform confinement too. The name isnt very clear on what exactly are we talking about. Beam compression on the other hand (which by the way, every single plasma physicist I've talked to knows what I'm talking about when I say beam compression, I dont know why you dont, but then again, you're not a plasma physicist) correctly describes the type of machine in the discussion. All of them inject some form of plasma in order to compress and reach fusion energy levels and density.

Most of my teachers, after I explain to them why I call ICF beam compression, understand why I call it that. They may not use it themselves, but they recognize the incorrect naming, which is just how it is.

I hope you understand from this post that:

1. beta is a number that can be greater than 1 depending on the definition, the machine, and other factors. Even after you more strictly define what beta is, you still run into the problem of machine difference, even if you only consider a class of machines, such as magnetic confinement machines, you still run into issues with differences of design.

2. Names are just names, but the way the term ICF came about is silly and what the terms actually would encompass a greater set of machines, which isnt many of those machines arent what we're talking about. The way to deal with this is to provide a more precise term.

3. Look I'm grateful you let me know that you can inject neutrals into a plasma in a donut machine to generate flow (which btw, it kinda only generate flow and not electric current, very different things), which actually you can do in a stellarator too, or actually any donut machine.

But then again, you didnt know stellarators can have bootstrap current, the more we know huh?
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

Joseph Chikva
Posts: 2039
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:30 am

Re: Bussard's Polywell patent application is finally dead.

Post by Joseph Chikva »

Mr., Stellarators with current producing significant field (and you provided me a link of proposed and not built machine with 4 MA bootstrap current) stops being stellarator converting into tokamak.

Beta is defined only for magnetic confinement and always calculated at the edge of plasma. Beta inside plasma as you tried to define is a big nonsense.

Thanks for providing a link what inertial confinement is. But I have a better source. That is Russian translation of the book: James J. Duderstadt, Gregory A. Moses, Inertial confinement fusion, which I read perhaps before your birth (I am 49 years old).

And finally your attempts to rename of commonly accepted terms is quite ridiculous. Instead it would be much helpful for you if you would learn better very basics of plasma physics. If you really want to work in that branch.

Good luck.

Joseph Chikva
Posts: 2039
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2011 4:30 am

Re: Bussard's Polywell patent application is finally dead.

Post by Joseph Chikva »

Robthebob wrote:3. Look I'm grateful you let me know that you can inject neutrals into a plasma in a donut machine to generate flow (which btw, it kinda only generate flow and not electric current, very different things), which actually you can do in a stellarator too, or actually any donut machine.
And finally, there is generated current of megaamperes order.
The current driven by neutral beam injection (NBI) is the sum of the beam current carried by fast ions and the electron return current[1, 2, 3]. The electron return current (or called reverse/shielding current) is generated due to the momentum transfer from the fast ions to electrons. The return current in tokamak equilibrium is usually smaller than the one in uniform plasma due to the trapped particles effect in tokamak plasma[4, 5]. Previous theoretical calculation of the electron return current is usually limited to the case in which either the inverse aspect ratio or the electron collisionality is small. Lin-Liu and Hinton found that the ratio of the electron returen current to the fast ions current is closely related to one of the bootstrap current coefficients and use the exsiting formula for the coefficient which is valid in general tokamak equilibria but for low collisionality regime to epress the electron return current. In this report, by using the adjoint method, we extend the work in Ref.[5], which is valid for banana regime, to arbitrary collisionality regime. We show that the ratio of the electron return current to the fast ion current can still be expressed in terms of one of the bootstap current coefficients. We further
make use of Sauter’s bootstrap current coefficient formula[6], which is valid in general tokamka equilibra and arbitray collisionality regime, to give a convenient formula for calculating the electron return current.
Again I am advising you to read more and not to claim nonsenses. As you looks funny saying "in several years I'll become a plasma physicist". You should know more things and much better than today for such claim.

MSimon
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Re: Bussard's Polywell patent application is finally dead.

Post by MSimon »

AcesHigh wrote:let´s say Polywell breaks even.

But because its not patentable because the patents office ruled it could not break even, its copied.

Can you sue the patents office for billions of dollars that you lost because of their misruling?
But it is not misrule. If "everything" necessary for Polywell was disclosed in the first patent than the patent has expired. Which is how the system is supposed to work. Was the second application different enough from the first? As I recollect - no.

Will it be profitable to make Polywells anyway? Ask the USN.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

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