EMC2 collaborating with other companies?

[crowberry]

Mattman found this article which says that four companies are collaborating on the polywell. Does anyone know which companies that could be in addition to EMC2? See this thread in the Theory forum:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5342

[Skipjack]

Direct link to article:
http://losalamosconnect.net/6-28-10-nat ... -problems/

Four Northern New Mexico companies are collaborating on a prototype based on the Polywell, an evolving fusion-power technology. Fusion power is a form of nuclear energy found naturally in the sun. It creates nuclear energy by fusing light nuclei together in a plasma state, rather than splitting heavy nuclei and leaving radioactive waste. LANL scientists Glen Wurden and Mark Smith and theorist Gian Luca Delzanno are helping the companies understand instabilities in the plasma that affect the reactor’s operation. “The stakes are high in developing new energy technologies,” said Wurden. “The companies are working to make fusion power practical, and LANL is proud to provide assistance that will enable new options for our energy future.”

This is unfortunately old news (June 2010). Still, it is one of the more interesting Polywell related infos I have seen in a while. Thanks for posting!

[paperburn1]

ok LM is one but who are the other two companys

[mvanwink5]

LANL scientists Glen Wurden and Mark Smith and theorist Gian Luca Delzanno are helping the companies understand instabilities in the plasma that affect the reactor’s operation.

That's the first I have heard of Polywell plasma instability problems, must have been solved early on as later their issue was the electron guns weren't high enough power.

[swamijake]

There are varies "knobs" that they can play with including drive voltage, mag field, e-guns, ion guns, pressure etc etc. It may be that the best Q is right on the edge of instability. Doug Coulter runs an interesting fusor and has pretty well documented how is neutron count spikes as he passes through various unstable operating regimes. (my choice of description, not his)

Here is Doug's recent post on fusor.net:

http://www.fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=9243

"The steady state turned out, after quite a lot of data acquisition and analysis, to be the absolutely worst case for Q!"

It also looks like Mark Smith is a measurement expert. No idea what that means.....

[paperburn1]

I guess they needed one of these
http://repository.unm.edu/handle/1928/17424?show=full
anybody else seen this?

[mvanwink5]

Yes, that has been posted and discussed a couple of years back. However, thanks for keeping an eye out for Polywell research articles.
Best regards,

[Tom Ligon]

The last time I visited the Santa Fe lab, the collaborations I was familiar with were a really good New Mexican restaurant they recommended, an agricultural supply firm from which they bought a pair of galvanized water troughs, and a concrete testing company that gave them used concrete test cylinders which Dr. Park stacked up to make shielding.

[paperburn1]

The last time I visited the Santa Fe lab, the collaborations I was familiar with were a really good New Mexican restaurant they recommended, an agricultural supply firm from which they bought a pair of galvanized water troughs, and a concrete testing company that gave them used concrete test cylinders which Dr. Park stacked up to make shielding.

How long ago was that?

[Tom Ligon]

The last time I visited the Santa Fe lab, the collaborations I was familiar with were a really good New Mexican restaurant they recommended, an agricultural supply firm from which they bought a pair of galvanized water troughs, and a concrete testing company that gave them used concrete test cylinders which Dr. Park stacked up to make shielding.

How long ago was that?

A few months before they moved back to San Diego, whenever that was. I had business in Albuquerque and was able to slip up there for a weekend to see the lab. WB7 work was underway.

In Manassas Park we had a really close relationship with one of our fusion equipment suppliers, a local plumbing store. We'd cannibalized an old microwave oven Dr. Bussard was retiring, used the magnetron on PXL-1. It happened to be able to seal the antenna into a vacuum chamber, and that turns out to be rare. When it started failing, I noticed the same model microwave at the plumbing supplier. We offered to trade a new one for the old. They specified one that could do popcorn properly. For years after that they recognized me on sight and gave me great service.

[mattman]

Hey,

I had not seen this before. EMC2 is using masters students from the University of New Mexico? Anyone know:

Mark Gilmore
Edl Schamiloglu
Alan Lynn
Kevin Davis

Anyone have Kevin Davis' Master Thesis? "Microwave Interferometer and Refractometer for the WB-8 Polywell Fusion Device"

[mvanwink5]

Yes, that paper was posted and discussed. It is virtually the only paper that gives some insight into WB-8 (at least that I can think of). I suspect the microwave diagnostics developed was important to WB-8 work.

[Tom Ligon]

I think, from that description, the microwave apparatus is likely similar to one used in the early 90's on HEPS, the first stab a the Polywell approach. When I was at EMC2 we would have loved to have that apparatus, but didn't quite have the right people to pull it off. The HEPS apparatus was something like 94 GHz, way over my level of knowledge.

[D Tibbets]

I think microwave interferometry may have been also used in early WB7 research. Nebel stated that the contracted with someone in New Mexico to provide this instrumentation. My impression is that this allowed for more precise and accepted measurements of internal density. The poor man's approach of photometry used by EMC in WB6 and earlier(?) was dependent on several processes ending up in visible light glow discharge- wave lengths of light emitted as electrons were (briefly?) captured by a hydrogen ion (emitted light would probably be in the ultraviolet range at this step) and then the electron falling to lower electron orbitals with corresponding emission at eg- hydrogen Alpha and hydrogen Beta wavelengths in the visible spectrum. This is a compound path and may be open to uncertainty. The adoption of the microwave interferometry may have been a more accepted and reliable instrumentation. It was part of verifying earlier data/ claims of WB6, etc. Nebel did say the two measurement methods were in agreement with each other. This removed one possible uncertainty in the WB6 data.

I'm uncertain, but the microwave interferometry may have also lent itself to measuring narrow line of sight density profiles better. By moving the measuring view around you could start building a density profile relative to the distance from the center of the machine. This would allow for measurement of conditions related to central confluence, or focus of the ion density towards the center. At one point Nebel did say that the edge density of the Polywell might reach over 10^22 particles / M^3, and if confluence occurred well the central core density might be as much as 100 times greater than this. If this could actually be demonstrated with reliable measurement it would contribute tremendously to understanding the dynamics , and scaling predictions.

Dan Tibbets

[mattman]

Got the thesis! This tool is really common in fusion.

Wisconsin just added a nice one to their fusor, last year. That is significant. It is so rare to have a fusor with an interferometer. Princeton was developing the one used on ITER. At NIF, this is done by making x-rays in parallel with a shot. The x-rays move through the plasma. They hit the plates – maybe hundreds of sheets – making blue and white images. You find the density from this. This is mainly done in a line. I think JET has a two-dimensional tool, but that relies on lots of assumptions. HEPS also used this method.


The idea is always the same. You shine light at the plasma (laser). The light scatters or reflects. You detect the light. From this, you find the plasma density. In the polywell, you do this on a line. Then, you mathematically spin the line over a sphere.

Polywell research would hugely impacted with accurate measurements. A live film of the plasma density and motion? That would be huge.

I am just reading Kevin’s master’s thesis. I like it. His explanations were very clear. Kevin’s thesis has density measurements from WB-8. At present, I do not think you can get that information anywhere else.