Injecting Plasma into polywell
Injecting Plasma into polywell
I have been asking this question and have not received any answers yet. A new rocket was developed called the HIIPER which injected plasma from a helical plasma device into a fusor to create an incredibly efficient plasma rocket. My question is could fusion be created by using a Helicon Double Layer Thruster (HDLT) to inject plasma into a polywell fusor?
Re: Injecting Plasma into polywell
Yes and no.
I'm not familiar with the device, but as a low voltage high density ion source it could be useful. If you are referring to the total system where a high energy beam is produced by the fusor portion, then no. The key to the Polywell ion source is that the ions must enter at a relative tiny voltage/ energy compared to the potential well in the Polywell, otherwise the ions cannot be contained by the electrostatic potential well and the ions would escape quickly through the magnetic containment, and all agree that this is intolerable.
Ion guns tend to be low power (in the milliamps). This needs to be improved by perhaps 10,000 to 1,000,000 times for a power producing Polywell. It is a challenge and the Helicon approach may have some potential, again so long as the output is at high amperage*, but low voltage.
In the Tokamak research powerful ion guns have been developed/ envisioned ( one half of the neutral beam injectors) but these are heating beams along with fuel sources. The heating implies injection at high KE/ high voltages, perhaps in the range of 50,000 eV. An ion beam injector for the polywell needs to be at low voltage, thus requiring a much (?) different design.
* One amp of current translates into one Coulomb of current per second, that is ~ 10^19 charged particles (singly ionized ions) per second. For 100's of MW of power you would need to be processing perhaps 10^20 to 10^23 ions per second. That would be comparable to about 10 to 1000 amps. Note that this would still be less than one mole of fuel per second- for deuterium this would be less than 2 grams per second.
Dan Tibbets
I'm not familiar with the device, but as a low voltage high density ion source it could be useful. If you are referring to the total system where a high energy beam is produced by the fusor portion, then no. The key to the Polywell ion source is that the ions must enter at a relative tiny voltage/ energy compared to the potential well in the Polywell, otherwise the ions cannot be contained by the electrostatic potential well and the ions would escape quickly through the magnetic containment, and all agree that this is intolerable.
Ion guns tend to be low power (in the milliamps). This needs to be improved by perhaps 10,000 to 1,000,000 times for a power producing Polywell. It is a challenge and the Helicon approach may have some potential, again so long as the output is at high amperage*, but low voltage.
In the Tokamak research powerful ion guns have been developed/ envisioned ( one half of the neutral beam injectors) but these are heating beams along with fuel sources. The heating implies injection at high KE/ high voltages, perhaps in the range of 50,000 eV. An ion beam injector for the polywell needs to be at low voltage, thus requiring a much (?) different design.
* One amp of current translates into one Coulomb of current per second, that is ~ 10^19 charged particles (singly ionized ions) per second. For 100's of MW of power you would need to be processing perhaps 10^20 to 10^23 ions per second. That would be comparable to about 10 to 1000 amps. Note that this would still be less than one mole of fuel per second- for deuterium this would be less than 2 grams per second.
Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.
Re: Injecting Plasma into polywell
Yes I was referring to just a high density ion source.
Re: Injecting Plasma into polywell
here is some general information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicon_Do ... r_Thruster
let me now what you think
thanks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicon_Do ... r_Thruster
let me now what you think
thanks