Reply To: Proliferation?

[Joseph Chikva]

delt0r wrote: *There is shear stabilized z pinch. However there was only a few experiments so far, and only one with high currents.

Bellow are data of already achieved and not projected parameters:

Gas-puff Z-pinch
Current 0.5MA was really achived in 1988
http://mifti.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/JApplPhys_64_3831.305212637.pdf

Wire array Z-pinch (Z-machine by Sandia National Laboratory)
http://www.sandia.gov/z-machine/
Current tens MA

JET Joint European Torus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus
Current 3.2MA
Lifetime of plasma 20-60s (if to believe to Wiki – as I doubt, but fraction of second or seconds in any case)
Edited:
•Current 5 mega amperes http://www.jet.efda.org/jet/jets-main-features/
•Energy Confinement Time: (t) 4-6 seconds http://www.jet.efda.org/fusion-basics/conditions-for-a-fusion-reaction/

About kink and sausage instabilities
http://www.jp-petit.org/science/Z-machine/HAINES_juin_2011.pdf

The theoretical models available at that time, e.g. Kruskal and Schwarzchild [37], Tayler [38], were analytic and based on ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and showed that both sausage (m = 0) and kink (m = 1) modes could be present.
Whilst many researchers then added axial magnetic fields or, in toroidal discharges, a toroidal magnetic field component in order to find a more stable equilibrium, the price that is paid for this is that one is then limited to low density (n < 10^16 cm^−3) discharges and, for fusion also, large volume devices, because of the practical upper limit of magnetic field that can be produced by coils.

For note: n=10^16 cm^−3=10^22 m^-3
But TOKAMAKs as a rule have lower number density of 10^20 m^-3 order