Reply To: Focus fusion and transportation

[Aeronaut]

annodomini2 wrote: Anyone considered using the capacitors themselves for shielding?

Other than possible dielectric breakdown, is there anything else that may suffer from this approach?

I sketched out a similar idea a few weeks when the pix started coming out. You could save a lot of plate steel by using an octagonal water jacket with 4 of the sides doubling as a common wall for 3 of the caps. This would reduce the shielding effectiveness due to not having a continuous boron and lead shield around the entire reaction chamber.

This would help make a smaller and lighter design but is a public relations nightmare because that would raise the operating radioactivity levels above background levels. I went with mounting the caps, charging, trigger controllers, and high voltage/high current parts on a sleeve that slides over the proper 3 layer shielding.