Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

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

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rcain
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Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by rcain »

http://www.sorlox.com/company.html


- anyone know anything about them/their idea?

1st time i've come across them. unfortunatly cant find any technical info, patents or maths to go with it either. looks quite an interesting 'idea' nontheless.

hanelyp
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by hanelyp »

At least 4 of the 5 images on their front page are high quality renderings of digital models. They probably have someone good with povRay. The mechanism shown a the bottom of their front page looks like it's supposed to shoot FRC plasma packets down a tapering spiral passage which is supposed to compress it. If a tapering pipe could compress such a plasma without overwhelming losses, the spiral is another factor to mess it up.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

rcain
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by rcain »

re: images - agreed - though the pic on http://www.sorlox.com/government.html looks real enough.

i can only find one other reference to them on the web - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases ... 83735.html

they claim to have built & tested a V1 already under DARPA contract & r awaiting a 'delayed' stage 2 contract (for break-even within 18 months no less!).

can find nothing about CTO Dr Brent Freeze (sounds like a super-villain from spiderman comix).

just really suprised nothing has come up on the radar before. ever so slightly suspicious.

mattman
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by mattman »

Hey,

Based on what they have here - I take it their idea is to send plasma at high speeds towards a "pinch" at the end of a tube.

If that is the deal then:

1. how is it possible the plasma is not conducted away by the metal surfaces?

2. What is the plasma speed? Temperature? I assume this is deuterium gas.

I will say - one innovation that is key is the size of this chamber. Its small. That makes getting the vacuum needed for experimentation much easier.

I would want to see papers, movies, an explanation of how this "Energy Production Process" works. It is to their credit that they got some SBIRs.

Also, It seems like they have a product for making D2 gas.

chrismb
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by chrismb »

It seems impossible to see what possible benefit sending an FRC around such a long spiral could achieve.

If there was any benefit whatsoever, it'd follow a spiral that turns in on itself as quickly as possible, one turn. or better still, straight into a short cone (maybe like Helion Energy's FRC collider).

All such a long tube would seem to possibly achieve is thermal loss to the lining.

But the FRC would end up gimballing around, in any case, due to the gyroscopic effect of it trying to maintain its axis of rotation.

This appears to be a case-in-point of what happens when too much Gov money pumps too many gravy-train schemes.

DeltaV
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by DeltaV »

rcain wrote:can find nothing about CTO Dr Brent Freeze (sounds like a super-villain from spiderman comix).
UCLA Magnetized Target Fusion research:

http://www.fusion.ucla.edu/apex/meeting13/Flihy.pdf
FLIHY Status
Brent Freeze, Neil Morley, Mo Dagher (2000)

http://www.fusion.ucla.edu/apex/peer/pe ... 5years.pdf
Graduate Students working in MFE Chamber Technology and CDX-U (March 2001, pg 2)

Freeze's specialty seems to be heat transfer. Wonder if this could be combined with JSFC's Tarditi, et al's traveling wave direct converter, if p-11B is possible (gyroscopic precession of a wispy plasma ignored).

Precession might even make the FRC more spherical as it tumbles before entering the axial chamber. Koloc.

kcdodd
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by kcdodd »

Nm.
Last edited by kcdodd on Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Carter

DeltaV
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by DeltaV »

Sorlox's MkII chamber kinda looks ceramic (magnetically transparent, no eddy currents to worry about, low heat transfer...)

How about a precession-countering, external, variable magnetic field, controlled in real time?

Or, precession magnetically tailored to enhance FRC internal sub-vortices in a beneficial way, if such be possible.

Image

Image


http://www.physics.ucla.edu/plasma-exp/ ... index.html
When the FRC is tilted, the toroidal electron flow not only twists the field lines but convects the entire tilted FRC topology toroidally.

DeltaV
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by DeltaV »

kcdodd wrote:Nm.
Newton meters? So the spiral adds torque? I mean energy? I mean torque? I mean energy? I mean torque? I mean energy? ...

JoeP
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by JoeP »

DeltaV wrote:
kcdodd wrote:Nm.
Newton meters? So the spiral adds torque? I mean energy? I mean torque? I mean energy? I mean torque? I mean energy? ...
LOL.

"Dr Brent Freeze" is a great name :)

I also fail to see why a spiral is a good idea (aside from compactness and looking cool). Would not a straight tube with decreasing diameter cause far less contact with the walls of the chamber?

seedload
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by seedload »

Come on, the thing has a "Nautilus Compressor" chamber with a "low atomic number inner wall coating" that feeds into a "burn chamber" all working in concert to crush the "Compact Torus Plasma Structure" otherwise known as the "Compact Toroid Plasma Structure" otherwise known as the "Compressed FRC Plasma" into a little tiny ball that absolutely MUST be fusing! It looks so frickin' cool that there is no doubt they must be able to break even!

Plus, looking at the pictures, it is apparent that it has a second use as a baseball pitching machine.

In all seriousness, there is more information on the page about how to get deuterium ("from your local gas supply company") than there is on the theory of the device. And, regarding funding from DARPA, didn't DARPA fund a break even pB11 fusion on a microchip research program just a few years ago. I am not sure that past funding by DARPA is great testimony. In fact, getting your funding canceled by DARPA probably says a lot more.
Stick the thing in a tub of water! Sheesh!

KitemanSA
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by KitemanSA »

DARPA is supposed to reach. If more than half of their projects succeed, they ain't reaching far enough.

seedload
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by seedload »

KitemanSA wrote:DARPA is supposed to reach. If more than half of their projects succeed, they ain't reaching far enough.
No. No. Don't get me wrong. I agree. No problem with DARPA reaching. I am just pointing out that if DARPA reaches then fanciful ideas get funded by them and, maybe more importantly, if DARPA cancels the project, then it points towards just how fanciful the idea might have been. So, referencing DARPA doesn't necessarily add credibility.

That said, hopefully there is something cool under the covers here that we don't know about. Gotta give the benefit of the doubt.
Stick the thing in a tub of water! Sheesh!

KitemanSA
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Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by KitemanSA »

seedload wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:DARPA is supposed to reach. If more than half of their projects succeed, they ain't reaching far enough.
That said, hopefully there is something cool under the covers here that we don't know about. Gotta give the benefit of the doubt.
Except to Italians?

seedload
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Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2008 8:16 pm

Re: Sorlox - FRC nautilus compressor

Post by seedload »

KitemanSA wrote:
seedload wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:DARPA is supposed to reach. If more than half of their projects succeed, they ain't reaching far enough.
That said, hopefully there is something cool under the covers here that we don't know about. Gotta give the benefit of the doubt.
Except to Italians?
LOL. I knew that would get to you:)

No, even to Rossi. Start with an open mind, digest the evidence, and then draw conclusions. As the BS piles up, consider abandoning ship. I don't want to take over this thread with another Rossi discussion. Over here is an example of how I started with an open mind even in Rossi's case.

http://talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.p ... 48#p102648
Stick the thing in a tub of water! Sheesh!

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