Help with Describing a Graphic Please

[D Tibbets]

Mr. Simon has it right. Batteries for the coils (high current, low voltage), capacitors for the coil cases (high voltage, low current). WB-6 power input ~ 10 MW.

Again, I don't know how Dr Nebel got 10MW for WB6 input power. I've assumed he meant for a breakeven machine like WB100 or WBD. In the WB6 results, the electron gun current was ~ 40 amps during the ~ 1/4th ms when Beta was near 1.

Do you have a reference for that 40A?

Quotes from this paper, which I believe is no longer available on the web

."EMC2 Inertial-Electrostatic Fusion (IEF) Development:
Final Successful Tests of WB-6; October/November 2005"


"After this, the magnetic field drive current was swept from zero up to 1000A (which gives an on-axis – face axis – field of about 1250-
1300 G)."
...

"The measured data from these tests shows DD fusion neutron production [Fig. 7] of about 5E4 neutrons over a period of about 0.2 msec (less than the data rate interval), which also shows the emitter current of injected electrons [Fig. 8] to run at about 4-40 A during this short pulse period of fusion generation. .This peak pulse period is also indicated by light output measurements from the photomultiplier tube detectors [Fig. 9]. The PMT showed a rise to peak output as the internal machine neutral gas was fully ionized, a flat-top during the onset of the external glow discharge, and a rapid falloff as this condition was passed. The actual rise was certainly faster than the data rate showed, so that at the peak, the edge electron density was a maximum, the full well depth was established, and DD fusion was taking place. Beyond this time, the potential on the machine dropped [Fig. 10] as external arcing (from the tank walls and feedthroughs) took over, the external current rose to very high values [Fig. 11], and the system discharged and shut down."
...

"The current measuring devices used to measure emitter current all measured this current with respect to ground. The emitter current channel was independent of that used for the external current measurement (which showed the currents due to glow discharge and arcing). Thus the emitter current was correctly measured [Figure 8] as was the external “dumping” currents, recorded as rising to over 4000 A, as shown in the data traces of Figure 11, following the deep well production, beta=one condition. "

The following graph showed the emmiter current at 40 amps.

This was for WB6 with a gas puffer. ~ 1/2 of the electrons was provided by the cascade ionization of the neutrals. These cold electrons were then heated by the injected hot electrons. So, with ion guns, would the electron guns may have needed to put out ~ 80 amps, but at a lower voltage? I'm uncertain how that would work out.

Dan Tibbets

[KitemanSA]

To make the 1,200G field with 200 turns and a 0.15m radius, the current had to be ~150A. I think he said 12V batteries at one time, so ~1.8kW for magnet current.

I went back and looked again and if I assume that the magnet current was split evenly between the 6 magnets rather than them being wound serially as I had always imagined, the numbers come out about right. In which case there was more like 11kW of magnet power. WOW!

[MSimon]

Somewhere toward the bottom right.

But no one really knows what confinement looks like in WB-6.

It's an odd graph. It seems intended to sell laser schemes.

If it is Q, what was the Q for WB-6? Dr. N said the power in was ~10MW.

I know it was 10MW for a reactor, I hadn't seen that # for WB-6. Let's see, if WB-6 was around 100KV, that would make it... 100A (100A x 100,000V = 10,000,000W)? I guess that's possible.

That's funny. Is the input really the same for WB-6/7 and a 100MW reactor? I guess that could work with B^4*R^3 power scaling and B^1/4 losses...

I saw a graph in a published paper (from maybe 10, 15 years ago) showing current requirements going down (during start up) as size went up. I think it was for a Penning Trap type machine. IIRC Dr. B was friends (consultant?) with the researchers. It might have been a Miley paper.