material science advancements

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

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paperburn1
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material science advancements

Post by paperburn1 »

20 tesla magnets are commercially available. Does anybody have any thought on the possibility of overcoming the problems that were discovered under lesser field strengths? Or should we put this concept to bed once and for all?
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

Giorgio
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Location: China, Italy

Re: material science advancements

Post by Giorgio »

Increased field strength due to HTSC are able to resolve most of the previous issues. But is also true that those stronger magnets are also solving most of the issues in older ideas and enabling new ideas.

In my opinion the race at this point is just to who will be able to offer a design at an economic tag in their selected commercial market or niche market.
Unfortunately I do not see the Polywell as a viable candidate to be at the top of any sector at the moment. Maybe in the future with even stronger fields and the start of space exploration it might carve a new niche for itself.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
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Re: material science advancements

Post by Skipjack »

I think it makes some steady state confinement concepts that rely on magnets more interesting again. Tokamaks and magnetic mirrors seem to benefit a lot. I remember reading that the Lockheed design might as well (though that has other issues).
I am not sure enough about whether Polywell would also benefit sufficiently.

Giorgio
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Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2009 6:15 pm
Location: China, Italy

Re: material science advancements

Post by Giorgio »

Indeed, in general the big benefit of an increased field is the smoothing and prevention of the onset of instabilities and thus Tokamaks (especially the spherical ones) will get a great boost in performances.

Regarding Polywell, I need to clarify before that to me the whole idea of the High Beta regime and the wiffleball formation as plasma pressure increased was neat and exciting in the start, but the more I learn about recent results on MHD instabilities induced by increased plasma pressure, the more it seems a dead road.
I think that the only viable road for a Polywell is in the Low Beta regime, with an high enough magnetic field to seal the electron in place allowing at the same time a higher plasma density without increasing the Beta values.
Hence my point that a 20T field can smooth out most of the issues with Polywell (in a Low Beta regime), and running the math will show that 30 or 40T will probably be needed to have enough plasma pressure while keeping an extremely low beta.

I still believe that the Polywell has the best layout for a future compact generator than every other design out there, but that same design makes it also too leaky for the technology level we have now. That is unless some new working regime is discovered while experimenting with higher magnetic fields, but without additional funding we will probably never know.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

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