Rezwan - 05 May 2010 03:36 PM

AaronB - 05 May 2010 01:30 PM

More news now posted on the LPP site.

Great!  I just added it to the LPPX twitter, and retweeted it on FFS.

Also, put the longer bits from Eric on the FFS site and tweeted those as well.  On LPPX first and then retweet on FFS.

I think it’s best if it comes from LPP and then FFS retweets.  More fitting.

Keeps LPPX for pure technical updates, and FFS is free to ramble into the broader social currency dimensions. 

Speaking of which, on the occasions when we do have news, I don’t see a lot of retweeting going on.  Twitter isn’t really useful if there’s no retweeting. 

I suppose I should mention this on twitter.

I don’t have the sci and tech to get specific, but it seems to me that these milestones are demonstrating that the Lerner-Blake model of the plasmoid etc. are proving themselves even more clearly and positively than hoped-for.  I.e., pinches, energy levels, and currents etc. are exceeding expectations.  Am I over-interpreting?

Hope you’re not over-interpreting, because that’s how it looks to me. I just added it to the FB page, saving the simulation stuff for a slow day closer to the weekend crunch.

How did the density affect the pinch? since i understand that the team didn’t expect it pinch since the density was so high, do you think that it will work even better or is it retarding the pinch?

QuantumDot - 05 May 2010 09:57 PM

How did the density affect the pinch? since i understand that the team didn’t expect it pinch since the density was so high, do you think that it will work even better or is it retarding the pinch?

The reason it wasn’t expected this soon is that 40 torr is expected to be the norm at 45kV.

How did it affect the confinement time?

does this mean that the team will try higher pressures as they up the current?

since density*confinement time*input current

i bet that a pinch near atmospheric pressure is possible
(but probably at much higher voltage).

vansig - 09 May 2010 05:35 AM

i bet that a pinch near atmospheric pressure is possible
(but probably at much higher voltage).

?? I think that’s around 760 torr, quite a stretch from 40!  Why would you want to?

Brian H - 22 May 2010 09:06 AM

vansig - 09 May 2010 05:35 AM

i bet that a pinch near atmospheric pressure is possible
(but probably at much higher voltage).

?? I think that’s around 760 torr, quite a stretch from 40!  Why would you want to?

you might not want to. but, the existence of ball lightning is kind of a giveaway.
who knows? increasing the pressure could be a good thing.

vansig - 22 May 2010 12:50 PM

increasing the pressure could be a good thing.

Reducing vacuum requirements would bring a big improvement in smaller, lighter vacuum pumps. The gotchya always seems to come back to a suitable capacitor life or developing a way to store the fusion outputs until the next pulse, since higher voltages rapidly shorten the design life of today’s caps.

‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello!

I’m hoping that it’s time for a monthly update.  Maybe soon, before the month runs out? 

I’d like to hear how things are progressing on the ‘how to get there from here’ curve.

TIA;
Pat

Murali is writing up the report this week.  That will have your technical info.  As for day to day stuff, Eric’s on vacation for a few weeks so they won’t be firing the machine.  Abdel and Murali are taking the time to open all the switches, clean and examine them.  And sand them (I’m not clear - I guess they literally sand things).  One of the sparkplugs never fired - they’ll be checking on how it’s different from the others.  A center pin holder has to be re-machined so they all have the same depth…

That sort of machine conditioning activity.  Also, they will be taking this time to write up some reports for publication. 

And other things.  For example an “antileak/movement redesign” so that the insulator can no longer move or leak. 

In more progressive news, they are also talking about the boron and tackling the to-do list to be ready to incorporate that into the experiment when the other issues are resolved. 

As for me, we’ve got lightroom and I finally see the possibility of managing all the pictures I’ve taken so far.  Approaching 3000, and yet plenty of gaps remain.  I’ve also got a volunteer (Victor Glass) to help with the picture project.  Will be taking advantage of this re-tooling time to get more information from the guys about what the heck I was taking pictures of this whole time.  And what the gaps are.  Oh!  And the macro lens I ordered works nicely, so we’ll be getting up close for more detail.

Also - I set up a wiki for the focus fusion society, and I’m drafting a “Focus Fusion General Plan” - to be unveiled…place your bets.

Any news on Murali’s report?

Just thought I’d chime in—haven’t seen any more data from the shots in a long time.  Anything interesting coming?

nemmart - 08 August 2010 12:21 AM

Just thought I’d chime in—haven’t seen any more data from the shots in a long time.  Anything interesting coming?

Are you regularly checking the LPP site and FaceBook pages?

Aeronaut - 08 August 2010 05:10 PM

nemmart - 08 August 2010 12:21 AM

Just thought I’d chime in—haven’t seen any more data from the shots in a long time.  Anything interesting coming?

Are you regularly checking the LPP site and FaceBook pages?

Murali’s mid-July June report is still MIA, and there is no substantive info on any activity since about Apr-May, other than tuning shots to work on the switches and camera, etc.  The projected goals had FoFu reaching 100 joules by August 1.  http://focusfusion.org/assets/lppx/graphs/ff1-yield-goal.jpg

Has the timeline been set back a couple of months?