LPP Experiment Update - Nov. 2, 2009
(6) CommentsAn official update from LPP. The crew is back to firing shots as of yesterday. Here’s the story:
Shortly after the first shots, experiments were interrupted by a failure of the trigger circuit that fires the switches. We returned the trigger module to the manufacture, R.E Beverly, who found it working and, indeed it was working again when we got it back. We took the down time to separate the grounding systems for the trigger from that for the device itself to reduce noise and danger to the trigger electronics.
In addition, we are starting to install the many instruments we will be using to observe the plasma. For the next series of shots, we will have installed a radiation detector to observe the total neutron and photon output and the lower Rogowski coil on the drift tube, which will measure the ion beam. This will be in addition to the main Rogowski coil, which measures the current through the electrodes.
We intend to add the rest of the instruments one-by-one over the next few weeks, so as to move our experiments along as rapidly as possible, rather than waiting for all instruments to be installed. We plan to install the Faraday cups, which will also measure the ion beams, the pin hole camera, which will measure the radius of the plasmoid, and the time-of-flight neutron detectors which will measure ion energy (temperature) and plasmoid density in the next few weeks. Before the end of the year we will install all the rest of the instruments.
House hearing on fusion
Significance of first shots and pinch, and note on process
Comments
For a more in depth discussion, start a thread in the forums.Thanks for the update. I appreciate it, and look forward to hearing more on the experiments, and their results.
Please think about editing the wikipedia article on focus fusion, the stub of which reads thusly.
“
‘’‘Focus Fusion’‘’ is a specific aneutronic method for producing electricity from plasma fusion of a boron compound and hydrogen, by generating a metastable toroidal plasma between a central post electrode and several surrounding post electrodes, from a large ultracapacitor voltage source.
The plasma so generated automatically collapses in such a fashion as to generate charged particles that exit through a coil that converts them directly to electricity, with no moving parts. Incidental x-rays are also converted to electricity using a multilayer wrap of several elements to cover the wide range of x-ray frequencies generated.
Emission of neutrons is very low, thus overcoming one of the most important objections to such processes, and the process proceeds by repeated impulses, occurring the low kilocycle range.
The process is much cheaper than tokamak to build and has recently (October 2009) achieved actual fusion and produced energy.”
That stub is correct, as far as it goes.
Ormond please consider editing wikipedia,
as it is an “anyone can edit” website,
at least theoretically.
Practically you would need to defend the article from various interest groups. I believe Erics time is better spent performing actual experiments.
I misstated. No fusion was achieved. He4 does not fuse. The first fusion events would be with Deuterium; but that’s not such a big deal. Basement fusors can achieve that kind of fusion. But attaining unity, and fusing boron, IS a big deal, in a year or so!
I believe I will work on that. Thanks for all the comments. I need to read up more on this. I have an incorrect view of the actual state of the experiments in terms of distance from unity and beyond.
Ormond
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