JohnP wrote:Would pumping up the B field (regardless of the tech used) be a cheaper way of testing scaling vs building a bigger (larger radius) prototype? I mean, couldn't EMC2 either crank up the current on their existing coils or retrofit WB7 with more powerful coils?
Or is B field scaling a given, and R scaling what's in question?
The most important question is the steady state question. Second most important is: BB or BG fusions.
Steady state operation would dispose of both questions.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
In principle, yes. There have been a number of detailed tokamak reactor studies, including sensitivity analyses. Surprisingly, the economics are hardly changed by the assumption that the critical field of the superconductors can be significantly raised. There are too many other constraints that also enter in, such as the mechanics of containing the magnetic forces and the thermal loading on the first wall.
Apparently, there is going to be no easy victories in fusion. May a raised critical field make smaller and less costly experiments possible? Thereby hastening the research?
I presume pBj is NOT peanut Butter and jelly, but proton Boron11, by what code uses j=11?
p = protons
B = Boron
j = joules
It is something I came up with about a year or a year and a half ago when we were trying to figure out the official sandwich of the BFR team. So yes. You got the joke.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
KitemanSA wrote:The WB7 was about .3T if memory serves. Thus a 100T unit of the same size would be about 333^4 ~ 10^10 as powerful at the same size. Of course, there may be no way to contain that power...
I dunno. Instead of 2 neutrons, we'd have 2*10^10 neutrons? 2 mJ? I think we could handle it.
Nice Art. But I think given the detection efficiency, included angle, etc each detected neutron is worth 3,000 produced neutrons. So you are up to 6 J in 1/4 mS. That would be 24,000 watts. Still not overwhelming. But a step in the right direction. You go up to 1 m diam coils and that puts you up around 860,000 W. A step up to 3 m coils and you are at 23 MW. Assuming you can keep the field constant while increasing the coil diameter. Which is not a given.
Of course the vacuum chamber might need a tad of stiffening to contain the forces generated by the opposing fields.
And then there is the small question of: will it work steady state. So a point or two in your favor.
Mabe I'm confused (it wouldn't be the first time). But, I thought the WB6 produced ~ 3 detected neutrons in each of several submillisecond runs. Considering detecter effeciency (~1/3000?) would give ~ 9,000 neutrons hitting the detecter, and considering the small area of the detecter plus the distance gives the isotropic neutron production, and then converting to neutrons per second gave reported values of ~ 1 billion neutrons per second. This is ~ 0.001 Watts. Increasing that by the 10th power would result in. 10,000,000 Watts. Of course if you are staying in 1 millisecond pulse conditions the output would be ~ 10,000 Watts per test. Or not...
