Reply To: Fusion Oil

[mchargue]

mchargue wrote:

You are correct that the largest piece is the capacitors. Super capacitor technology is advancing quickly but they are the wrong kind of capacitors. The capacitors for FoFu require low inductance, fast discharge current and high voltage. Super capacitors tend to be low voltage, slow discharge capacitors. It is challenging to reduce the size of high voltage capacitors that can discharge as needed in FoFu. Other technologies may replace capacitors but a FoFu reactor will still need shielding. I can imagine a 5 MW reactor with everything fitting in a 1 car garage but much small than that is unlikely.

What other technology might replace capacitors in this application?

TIA;
Pat

Well, here’s something interesting in pulse-power systems: a ‘Compensated pulsed alternator’, or compulsator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensated_pulsed_alternator

This takes the energy of motion, and uses that to drive a high-current systems, like railguns. Not sure what the output voltage is, though I expect that can be tuned. Given that something like this can be used, would this eliminate the high-current, high-voltage switch? (spark-gap now) If you’re switching on a (relatively) low-power excitation field used to stop the flywheel – which will then give up it’s energy as a high-current, high-voltage spike – can your use that to shape the FoFu power pulse?

Maybe this in combination with something that can compress the compulsator’s output pulse into something more usable by FoFu…?

Maybe this?
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6191525&url=http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6191525

Or some of these?
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=6188417

You folks need to fins a grad student trying to make his bones in the pulsed-power field, and convince him there’s a thesis topic in this.

Patrick