Reply To: would nuclear energy really be accessible to all?

[JimmyT]

Allan Brewer wrote:

Wont the speediest ones come out, first?
Let’s design the system to allow the particle velocities to stratify.

The effective coil length would then change through the duration of the exit beam.

JimmyT wrote:
What I wrote is, of course, a bit of a simplification. The field strength of the coil is not constant, but will increase as particles deposit their energy there. And some slower particles will likely come before some faster particles. But the ideal particle speed distribution is exactly the opposite of what stratification would create. You would like the slowest particles first with a gradual increase in speed as the coil’s field strength increases. Unless we are extremely fortunate nature will not be so cooperative.

Lets say the distance from the site of plasmoid annihilation to the Rogowski coil is 1 metre. A 65KeV He ion travels that distance in about half a microsecond. If the duration of the plasmoid annihilation is very much less than one microsecond (is it??), (and we know the plasmoid is extremely small compared with a metre), then the Helium ions will indeed arrive at the coil smoothly graded fastest first and slowest last. If the coil is optimally designed, we could envisage the fast ion being slowing to a halt in the coil before slower ions even reached the coil, or alternatively that the fast ion spends longer in the coil than the slower ion such that they all grind to a halt at about the same time.

The more I think about this the more convinced that the optimal solution is only going to be found by running simulations. There are just too many variables to figure out the best solution.