Contenders

[Rezwan]

We are developing a “contenders” section for the site.

Setup:
It will have to be set up as two weblogs with shared categories.

One “weblog” will have one post per contender – itemizing their specs so that all contenders can be compared in some tabular fashion.

The second weblog will be for posts with news articles on each group. Many posts could be made by FFS members into this weblog, as news about each contender emerges.

Details:
Now: to break down the type of content to populate the first “weblog” with.

[Aeronaut]

Outstanding idea, Rezwan. It should have a prominant image link above the fold on the index page, and would add a lot to our credibility. After all, who else publishes their own specifics, let alone that of their competitors? Nobody that I’m currently aware of. But Helion‘s charts provide a good model for the chart design.

[Rezwan]

OK, Here’s a crude table to give an idea of the criteria and how the contenders might compare.

The criteria need to be better developed – especially to come up with equivalent units for measuring.

The candidates need to be listed.

The info for each candidate needs to be filled in.

That’s content.

As to structure, I have to set up a weblog with all the criteria fields. New fields can always be added, so even with partial list we’re OK. Info can be filled in/updated as it comes.

Then – one day we can get really fancy and set up some code to compare different fusion alternatives like they compare cameras on CNET.

OK. This one’s a collaborative project. Let’s work on the left column so I have the fields to set up a contender weblog, and an SAEF form and give permission to people to fill in contenders. We’ll see how it works.

Attached files

Contenders.doc (48 B) 

[BSFusion]

Its been two years, since this Comparison of Contenders has been proposed, has someone been updating the information?
I’de like to add another contender to the list, but before it gets consideration, I think it should be thouroughly scrutinized.
Please point out any potential flaws in the following approach to fusion (below). Thanks

====

Bubble-confined Sonoluminescent-laser Fusion (BSF), is one of the newest approaches to generating thermonuclear fusion power. It combines ideas from laser Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), sonofusion, and peizoelectric energy harvesting. In respect to other approaches, BSF is expected to have the following benefits: a higher power generating capacity, more efficent energy conversion, a higher tritium breeding ratio, and no activation issues. In addition, BSF’s fuel targets are inexpensive, because they are fabrication-free (bubbles), and, being emersed directly in the coolant, the fuel cannot disperse as quickly as fuel in an ICF target that is situated inside of a vacuum chamber. This extended containment time leads to higher gains, because self-heating can begin at a lower ignition temperature and a larger fraction of the fuel can be burnt.

For more info see: http://home.centurytel.net/bubbles/bubbles.htm

[Joeviocoe]

BSFusion wrote: Its been two years, since this Comparison of Contenders has been proposed, has someone been updating the information?
I’de like to add another contender to the list, but before it gets consideration, I think it should be thouroughly scrutinized.
Please point out any potential flaws in the following approach to fusion (below). Thanks

====

Bubble-confined Sonoluminescent-laser Fusion (BSF), is one of the newest approaches to generating thermonuclear fusion power. It combines ideas from laser Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), sonofusion, and peizoelectric energy harvesting. In respect to other approaches, BSF is expected to have the following benefits: a higher power generating capacity, more efficent energy conversion, a higher tritium breeding ratio, and no activation issues. In addition, BSF’s fuel targets are inexpensive, because they are fabrication-free (bubbles), and, being emersed directly in the coolant, the fuel cannot disperse as quickly as fuel in an ICF target that is situated inside of a vacuum chamber. This extended containment time leads to higher gains, because self-heating can begin at a lower ignition temperature and a larger fraction of the fuel can be burnt.

For more info see: http://home.centurytel.net/bubbles/bubbles.htm

It HAS been thoroughly scrutinized!

Taleyarkhan, the physicist that started BSF, has been found guilty of misconduct.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2008-08-27-purdue-scientist_N.htm
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/19/science/sci-misconduct19

It’s one of those table-top fusion hoaxes that nobody can replicate the claimed results. That website you linked is even more remedial than the original. Sorry, but this is NOT a contender.

[BSFusion]

Joeviocoe, I really hate being compared to Taleyarkhan.

Taleyarkhan did not invent BSF. In fact, his apparatus does not even use a laser. Check for yourself. I googled “BSF deeth” and got 60,100 results, but when I googled “BSF Taleyarkhan” I only got 28 results, and, in those few cases, the BSF stood for either Bible Scientific Foresight or BioSciences Federation, not Bubble-confined Sonoluminescent-laser Fusion. Also, don’t confuse BSF with tabletop tinker toys, its intended as a full-scale power plant.

I have no idea what you’re reffering to, when you mentioned an “original” website, where is that?

Anyway, I should have included the Title & Abstract (see below) with my original post, sorry.

TITLE OF INVENTION
==============
A NUCLEAR FUSION POWER PLANT HAVING A LIQUID REACTOR CORE OF MOLTEN GLASS THAT IS MADE LASERACTIVE AND FUNCTIONS AS A TRITIUM BREEDING BLANKET WHICH IS CAPABLE OF ACOUSTICLY COMPRESSING/CONFINING FUEL SO THAT IT RADIATES AND TRIGGERS OUTGOING LASER CASCADES THAT WILL REFLECT FROM THE BLAST CHAMBER’S SPHERICAL INSIDE WALL AND RETURN LIKE PHOTONIC TSUNAMIS, CRUSHING, HEATING, AND CAUSING THERMONUCLEAR IGNITION OF THE FUEL SO THAT HEAT ENGINES AND PIEZOELECTRIC HARVESTERS CAN CONVERT THE RELEASED ENERGY INTO ELECTRICITY.

ABSTRACT
=======
A nuclear fusion power plant having a spherical blast-chamber filled with a liquid coolant that breeds tritium, absorbs neutrons, and functions as both an acoustical and laser medium. Fuel bubbles up through the sphere’s base and is positioned using computer guided piezoelectric transducers that are located outside the blast-chamber. These generate phase-shifted standing-waves that tractor the bubble to the center. Once there, powerful acoustic compression waves are launched. Shortly before these reach the fuel, an intense burst of light is pumped into the sphere, making the liquid laser-active. When the shockwaves arrive, the fuel temperature skyrockets and it radiates brightly. This, photon-burst, seeds outgoing laser cascades that return, greatly amplified, from the sphere’s polished innards. Trapped within a reflecting sphere, squeezed on all sides by high-density matter, the fuel cannot cool or disassemble before thorough combustion. The blasts kinetic energy is absorbed piezoelectrically.

[Joeviocoe]

BSFusion wrote: Joeviocoe, I really hate being compared to Taleyarkhan.

Taleyarkhan did not invent BSF. In fact, his apparatus does not even use a laser. Check for yourself. I googled “BSF deeth” and got 60,100 results, but when I googled “BSF Taleyarkhan” I only got 28 results, and, in those few cases, the BSF stood for either Bible Scientific Foresight or BioSciences Federation, not Bubble-confined Sonoluminescent-laser Fusion. Also, don’t confuse BSF with tabletop tinker toys, its intended as a full-scale power plant.

I have no idea what you’re reffering to, when you mentioned an “original” website, where is that?

Anyway, I should have included the Title & Abstract (see below) with my original post, sorry.

TITLE OF INVENTION
==============
A NUCLEAR FUSION POWER PLANT HAVING A LIQUID REACTOR CORE OF MOLTEN GLASS THAT IS MADE LASERACTIVE AND FUNCTIONS AS A TRITIUM BREEDING BLANKET WHICH IS CAPABLE OF ACOUSTICLY COMPRESSING/CONFINING FUEL SO THAT IT RADIATES AND TRIGGERS OUTGOING LASER CASCADES THAT WILL REFLECT FROM THE BLAST CHAMBER’S SPHERICAL INSIDE WALL AND RETURN LIKE PHOTONIC TSUNAMIS, CRUSHING, HEATING, AND CAUSING THERMONUCLEAR IGNITION OF THE FUEL SO THAT HEAT ENGINES AND PIEZOELECTRIC HARVESTERS CAN CONVERT THE RELEASED ENERGY INTO ELECTRICITY.

ABSTRACT
=======
A nuclear fusion power plant having a spherical blast-chamber filled with a liquid coolant that breeds tritium, absorbs neutrons, and functions as both an acoustical and laser medium. Fuel bubbles up through the sphere’s base and is positioned using computer guided piezoelectric transducers that are located outside the blast-chamber. These generate phase-shifted standing-waves that tractor the bubble to the center. Once there, powerful acoustic compression waves are launched. Shortly before these reach the fuel, an intense burst of light is pumped into the sphere, making the liquid laser-active. When the shockwaves arrive, the fuel temperature skyrockets and it radiates brightly. This, photon-burst, seeds outgoing laser cascades that return, greatly amplified, from the sphere’s polished innards. Trapped within a reflecting sphere, squeezed on all sides by high-density matter, the fuel cannot cool or disassemble before thorough combustion. The blasts kinetic energy is absorbed piezoelectrically.

I would not rely on number of google hits to indicate anything. Especially if you were to type in an acronym.

Has anybody actually created a device and begun getting confirmed fusion reactions using this approach? Or is this all still on paper? Even Farnsworth-Hirsh Fusors get confirmed fusion reactions.
Has anything written on this new approach been published in a peer reviewed journal?

It seems that the http://home.centurytel.net/bubbles/bubbles.htm (Mike Deeth’s website) is served on a free domain and is not very professional at all.
Judging from the website given, it I don’t think there has ever been a device with a confirmed reaction, nor any preliminary experiments to verify underlying principles.

According to Mike Deeth himself, ” I should also mention that I’m neither a physicist nor a high school graduate”. He has also filed a patent application… which indicates nothing since the patent office does not verify claims.
Not to say that great inventors must be formally educated…. but fusion research is not just ‘invention’ using already established science… it is new science which will require education, use of the scientific method, and experimentation to the level that exceeds a typical garage or basement.

That all being said…. I don’t see how any of this is really impressive. It seems that whoever this Mike Deeth is, he took a fusion idea that once had some merit (before being discredited), and saw the movie “Chain Reaction” (1996) with Keanu Reaves, Morgan Freeman, and Rachel Weisz… which portrayed a type of Laser induced sonoluminescence device… and thought it all seemed plausible. The website is quite detailed.. but even the basic claims are largely unverified.

[BSFusion]

Joeviocoe, its good to be skeptical, but what you are doing is unfair – you are falsely associating BSF with Teleyarkhan, which robs BSF of its credibility before it has had a chance to be properly considered. Also, are you sure lasers were used to ignite the fuel in “Chain Reaction,” and not just for measuring the size of the bubbles? If you are correct, then “Chain Reaction” would qualify as prior art, invalidating my patent.

I’m not too concerned about my website; it was only created to allow easy access to BSF patent documents & diagrams, without requiring the installation of special software that would otherwise be necessary for gaining access through the USPTO. Sorry, the patent application is quite long (100+ pages), poorly written, and contain a lot of “word salad.” Some reasons for that are, time is limited when writing a patent, I have no English training beyond the 7th grade, and this is just a hobby.

Some frequent misconceptions about BSF:
a) the size of the bubbles used in BSF are larger (~1 cm diameter) than those used in a typical sonoluminescent experiment with oscillating bubbles, which, at maximum dilation, are not much larger than the width of a human hair.
b) BSF is not sonofusion. BSF uses an extremely high energy laser to ignite the fuel. It is true that the bubbles get heated and pre-compressed using acoustical pressure, but this is primarily to trigger a focused laser cascade, not to ignite the fuel.
c) The on-target energy dumping capacity of BSF’s laser is greater than NIF’s. There are two reasons for this. First, BSF’s laser contains a larger volume of amplification material. Second, BSF uses liquid amplifier material that can handle a higher flux than the solid-state optics of NIF, which might warp, fracture, melt, etc.
d) BSF is a new and untested approach to fusion. Currently, no single device incorporates all of the necessary parts, interconnected in one unit. But, all of BSF’s technology (ie. liquid lasers, acoustical transport, piezoelectric harvesting, etc.) has been verified separately in other devices.

[Joeviocoe]

BSFusion wrote: Joeviocoe, its good to be skeptical, but what you are doing is unfair – you are falsely associating BSF with Teleyarkhan, which robs BSF of its credibility before it has had a chance to be properly considered. Also, are you sure lasers were used to ignite the fuel in “Chain Reaction,” and not just for measuring the size of the bubbles? If you are correct, then “Chain Reaction” would qualify as prior art, invalidating my patent.

I’m not too concerned about my website; it was only created to allow easy access to BSF patent documents & diagrams, without requiring the installation of special software that would otherwise be necessary for gaining access through the USPTO. Sorry, the patent application is quite long (100+ pages), poorly written, and contain a lot of “word salad.” Some reasons for that are, time is limited when writing a patent, I have no English training beyond the 7th grade, and this is just a hobby.

Some frequent misconceptions about BSF:
a) the size of the bubbles used in BSF are larger (~1 cm diameter) than those used in a typical sonoluminescent experiment with oscillating bubbles, which, at maximum dilation, are not much larger than the width of a human hair.
b) BSF is not sonofusion. BSF uses an extremely high energy laser to ignite the fuel. It is true that the bubbles get heated and pre-compressed using acoustical pressure, but this is primarily to trigger a focused laser cascade, not to ignite the fuel.
c) The on-target energy dumping capacity of BSF’s laser is greater than NIF’s. There are two reasons for this. First, BSF’s laser contains a larger volume of amplification material. Second, BSF uses liquid amplifier material that can handle a higher flux than the solid-state optics of NIF, which might warp, fracture, melt, etc.
d) BSF is a new and untested approach to fusion. Currently, no single device incorporates all of the necessary parts, interconnected in one unit. But, all of BSF’s technology (ie. liquid lasers, acoustical transport, piezoelectric harvesting, etc.) has been verified separately in other devices.

I’m not really comparing you two. But he was a PhD holding Nuclear Engineer, had worked at ORNL, several grants and peer reviewed publication, etc. The only thing he did wrong was that he did claim to to have gotten the closest to a real device when the research didn’t support that conclusions, and was found guilty of misconduct for “falsification of the research record” by a Purdue review board in July, 2008..

At your stage of development… Hypothetical (Pre-theoretical)… you should should strive to be compared to Teleyarkhan. Well, his earlier work anyway. He had quite a bit of real research done. And solid, Peer-reviewed stuff… to at least support that he was getting somewhere.

BSF does NOT have Zero credibility because of him… but yes, there is a stigma now. So anybody coming along after him, that has ideas even CLOSE to bubble sono fusion… will need to have at LEAST some credible peer reviewed papers.

The movie does not specify any real science. Mostly graphics with no explanation. So I doubt that the movie itself would bring up problems with your patent application. But… the science consultant for the movie must have seen it, or read about it, in order to base the plot around the idea.

However, Professor Andrea Prosperetti of Johns Hopkins HAS indeed done some work on Laser ignited Sono bubble fusion. Concluded to NOT WORK.

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Sonoluminescence_-_Mechanism_of_phenomenon/id/2110704
http://www.me.jhu.edu/MENewsletter2012.pdf

He may not have a device patented though.
If you’ve never heard of him, or have seen any of his research, then you wouldn’t have based your artwork on his ideas… so there shouldn’t be enough similarities to be a big problem with patents.

————————–

But I think you are going about it all wrong. Since you were not formally trained in science, you may not understand how good science is conducted.

Patents are all good and well, if you have a unique process or apparatus to exactly what you already KNOW can be done. A Patent does NOT equal Scientific Discovery.
You really have to discover a new insight into scientific principle here. Not just invent a machine. The patent will come later, after all the ground work and you get a peer reviewed confirmation that your basic idea is sound. So far, Bubble Fusion is not proven to be feasible. And you will need to write a good paper to propose the idea again.

If you are serious about this… you will need to fully read and understand the research that came before. And understand its shortcomings. You need to contact the professors that have research this, and see where they left off. You need to contact or visit the universities and labs that have done this work, and see if you understand the problem first.

And if you are REALLY serious, get a formal degree. It is not necessary for a garage inventor that simply takes known scientific principles and invents new practical useful applications for them. But for Bubble Fusion, yeah, that is going to require that you get all the prerequisites and join a real research team.

Good luck.

[BSFusion]

Jo…, the links you posted are irrelevent. Prosperetti’s theory, pertaining to how stable single bubble sonoluminescence occurs, has been discredited; high speed cameras have recorded the phenomena and show that no liquid jets are present. In addition, BSF does not rely on stable oscilating bubbles, after one big acoustic squeeze, the fuel is laser-heated (~1,000,000 K) and then compressed using Andrei Sakharov’s notion of ionization compression.

“The high compression of a small bubble of fluid is similar to the explosive compression of a pellet of material by laser beams, one of the methods proposed for creating nuclear fusion, which has not been very successful. Prosperetti and others think that it is impossible for a bubble to maintain a perfectly spherical shape as it compresses, with either the laser or acoustic compression method, ruling out the high temperatures required for nuclear fusion.”

AFAIK, NIF scientists are still predicting ignition by 2013, and, contrary to predictions which claim a converging shock is always unstable, H. B. Chen of IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, in an article titled “The Rayleigh-Taylor and Imploding Shock Wave Instabilities in the Spherical Pinch”, found that the growth rate of perturbations was not exponential and that spherically imploding shock waves are relatively stable near the collapse phase of the shocks.

The initial stage of bubble collapse is slow and isothermal, during which the energy deposited in the bubble interior is readily transferred to the surrounding liquid via thermal conduction. As the speed of collapse increases the interior of the bubble undergoes compressional heating and becomes increasingly adiabatic due to the rapidity of the bubble collapse.

Sonoluminescence is now a well understood phenomena, unrelated to fusion. The spectrum of light emitted by a sonoluminescent bubble is extremely well fit to the spectrum of a blackbody. When a bubble is heated through adiabatic compression, the radiation of electrons (ie. a bremsstrahlung plasma) becomes thermally equilibrated in the opaque medium at the bubbles perimeter such that only the blackbody surface emission is observed for strongly driven bubbles.

In Journal of Fluid Mechanics 1998 “Analysis of Rayleigh-Plesset dynamics for sonoluminescing bubbles,” it was suggested that the ideal fluid for creating a violently collapsing but surface-stable bubble should have a low surface tension and a high viscosity… other suggestions capable of up-scaling the collapse intensity would be to use lower driving frequencies and/or larger ambient pressures at the same Pdriver / Pambient. BSF already incorporates several of these suggestions into its physical design, and its operational methods can incorporate the rest. In addition, because of the high ambient temperature inside of a BSF reactor, higher post-compression temperatures should be possible. Taken altogether, it should be easy to create a luminous burst of sufficient strength to trigger the necessary outgoing laser cascade.

Recent experiments conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign indicate temperatures of at least 20,000 K, in an oscillating bubble, but higher temperatures could be achieved, if the bubble was not required to be trapped and oscillating, by one powerful squeeze. In this method of Single Cavitation Bubble Luminescence (SCBL) the number of emitted photons per flash and the pulse duration are both much greater than in Single Bubble Sonoluminescence (SBSL). Another advantage of SCBL over SBSL is that SCBL bubbles can be about a thousand times bigger (radius = ~3 mm) and take a hundred times longer (~100 microseconds) to collapse. Under low driving pressure, the presence of a noble gas in the bubble was found to be crucial for producing stable high-intensity light emissions. Without the noble gas, there was a low temperature ceiling, of about 6000 K, most likely the result of molecular disassociation, H2 + energy -> 2H, inside the bubble. It takes energy to break bonds, and the noble gases have none. Under driving pressures from 1.9 to 3.1 bar, the observed emission temperature ranges from 6200 K to 9500 K. The temperature also increases if monatomic gasses are dissolved inside the bubble, such that higher temperatures are achieved by heavier Nobel gasses.

[BSFusion]

Jo…,

Continuing where I left off with my last post… In BSF, when the amplified blackbody radiation returns, it must either be reflected or absorbed at the bubbles periphery, since it cannot penetrate beyond the critical depth, which for hot, dense DT is only a fraction of a millimeter. The laser’s heat and pressure quickly create a powerful shockwave, capable of ionizing everything in its path. Light cannot penetrate beyond the highly ionized leading edge of this shockwave, so the absorption sight for any subsequent laser energy would have to travel outward with the shockwave. Complicating the situation further, an explosive phase transformation is expected to occur in the coolant that surrounds the fuel. The reason for this is that the central focus-point of the reactor gets very hot and the rate of spontaneous nucleation increases exponentially with temperature. It is known that the frequency of spontaneous nucleation is about 0.1 s^-1 cm^-3 at the temperature near 0.89 Tc (critical temperature), but increases to 1021 s^-1 cm^-3 at 0.91 Tc. This indicates that a rapidly heated liquid could possess considerable stability with respect to spontaneous nucleation up to 0.89 Tc, with an avalanche-like onset of spontaneous nucleation of the entire high temperature liquid layer at about 0.91 Tc. Therefore, at a temperature of about 0.9 Tc, homogenous nucleation, or explosive phase transformation occurs. This idea of explosive phase transformation has been applied to the process of laser glass cutting, which uses a 10.6 m m wavelength CO2 laser since glass is opaque in the mid-infrared region of the spectrum. These lasers can deposit, through partial transmission and absorption, a large fraction (90%) of their energy.

LASERS, by A. Siegman, says:

“…If the amplification along a long thin cylinder of inverted atoms is sufficiently large, for example, this can produce an output beam from each end of the laser medium which can be quite bright, powerful, and moderately directional, with a fair amount of spatial (but usually not temporal) coherence. This radiation may become strong enough to produce significant saturation along the gain medium, and to extract the major portion of the inversion energy into the directional beams. The inverted medium thus acts as a “mirrorless laser,” with output characteristics that are intermediate between a truly coherent laser oscillator and a completely incoherent thermal source.”

BSF depends on amplified blackbody emission ABE, which is more intense and localized than amplified spontaneous emissions ASE. The ABE from a high-temperature sonoluminescent bubble will quickly reach saturation (see figure 18), unlike ASE. In addition, because a medium’s saturation fluence goes down (due to thermal line broadening) with increased temperature BSF’s hot laser medium will diminish the amplification of ASE relative to ABE.

Spherical phase coherency of the laser should not be a problem for BSF. The reason I say this is that, the size of a sonoluminescent bubble is large (~1 cm dia.) compared to the predominant laser wavelengths (~1.06 +/- 0.005 micron for Nd3+), so, even when two waves (located near the desired absorption point) are temporally or directionally out of phase, it is likely that they will constructively interfere within a short distance, and this, in turn, might cause electrons in the vicinity to absorb their energy. The absorption band of laser energy at the start of a BSF implosion is expected to be about 0.4 mm thick, mostly coolant at the outer perimeter of the bubble, which gets heated to a temperature of around 90 eV. At this temperature most of the elements in the coolant will be ionized to the 4th level, and it is the expansion of this highly ionized coolant that drives the bubbles compression. Most of the pressure used to compress the fuel comes from the extra particles (electrons), since, at a given temperature, all particles acquire the same kinetic energy. In addition, since the acoustical pressures in the vicinity of the bubble would be extremely high, and since there is no vacuum for the fuel to squirt out into, I see no reason why BSF targets could not be imploded non-symmetrically.

[0085] An observation worthy of attention, is the fact that, because of spherical geometry, a ray of light inside the sphere has its path confined, bouncing on a single plane that it cannot leave. That plane is determined by the ray’s origin, the first point of reflection, and the sphere’s center. A close examination reveals that if a ray of light passes close to the center it will return after two reflections, revisiting the same approximate location. This observation appears prominently in the simulation results (figure 11), which show an unexpectedly high two-reflection reabsorption rate. This (high two-reflection reabsorption rate) improves the sphere’s overall energy retention ability, allowing off-center target ignition. Also, since there is extra leeway to position the fuel, a less stringent control system is required.

[BSFusion]

Jo…,

If you are serious about this… you will need to fully read and understand the research that came before. And understand its shortcomings.

Some problems I see with acoustic inertial confinement fusion are:
1) cooling loses are prolonged, because energy accumulates slowly, at the speed of sound,
2) small bubbles quickly lose thermal energy, because of their high surface-area to volume ratio,
3) energy is wasted breaking molecular bonds, both in the liquid and in the fuel,
4) only a small fraction of the energy gets to the fuel, because, at the high pressures fusion requires, liquids become very compressible, storing energy like a spring.
Some problems I see with laser inertial confinement fusion are:
1) Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that mix and cool the fuel,
2) incomplete burn-up, because of the extremely short containment time,
3) optical damage from neutrons, heat, and target debris,
4) the cost of targets prohibits commercialization,
5) first wall material activation issues
BSF is not afflicted by those problems, and, in addition, BSF is expected to have higher gains than ICF.

Patents are all good and well, if you have a unique process or apparatus to exactly what you already KNOW can be done. A Patent does NOT equal Scientific Discovery. You really have to discover a new insight into scientific principle here. Not just invent a machine. The patent will come later, after all the ground work and you get a peer reviewed confirmation that your basic idea is sound. So far, Bubble Fusion is not proven to be feasible. And you will need to write a good paper to propose the idea again.

The ground-work is complete, and it is accessable by anyone with a computer, hundreds of free online reports, from LLNL, LANL, SNL, PPPL, and other government & private labs. AFAIK, BSF stays within the boundaries of current scientific knowledge. Please explain any violations you have in mind, when you imply BSF does not use KNOWN scientific principles. Also, I’m pretty sure BSF is NOT ready to be written-up in a peer reviewed paper. First, I am not ready to do the writing. Second, I don’t want to look foolish if it doesn’t work. Afterall, I have no scientific training and I could easily have overlooked something. No, it is better to scrutinize it here first, then someone here can volunteer to do the write-up.

Thanks

[Joeviocoe]

Thanks for all the detail. But you don’t have to convince me. Nor do you need confirmation from anybody on this forum.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) has plenty of accreditation, credibility and experimental data to go on. So you have a long way ahead. Publish your work in a peer-reviewed journal. Collaborate with a University or research team. It is WAY too early to be talking about Patents and being a serious contender for a practical fusion device. I wish you luck.

[Joeviocoe]

BSFusion wrote:

I’m pretty sure BSF is NOT ready to be written-up in a peer reviewed paper. First, I am not ready to do the writing. Second, I don’t want to look foolish if it doesn’t work. Afterall, I have no scientific training and I could easily have overlooked something. No, it is better to scrutinize it here first, then someone here can volunteer to do the write-up.

Nobody is going to write a formal paper for you to be published. You need some of your own experimental data too. Sure, maybe someone will scrutinize it here… but I would not count on it too much. There is not a whole lot that can be collaborated over this forum. There has already been plenty done on BSF, as you mentioned… you either need to prove the concepts that those other labs have failed to prove, or collaborate directly with them to get them to retry.

[Joeviocoe]

BSFusion wrote:

Sorry if I am still not seeing the major differences. The “SF” in BSF DOES actually stand for sonofusion. It appears to be a different approach, to the same concept.

No, the accronym BSF stands for Bubble-confined Sonoluminescent-laser Fusion, as spelled out in patent appl#: 12/803901, not Bubble SonoFusion. The concepts overlap, but there are major differences. If I changed the name to Matter-confined Laser Fusion (MLF) would that eliminate your objection?

Sorry, but YOUR OWN patent application does not dictate the conventions of common acronyms in science or engineering. The BSF acronym stands as a general concept to be Bubble SonoFusion. If you want to add words using hyphens, be my guest. You can call it, B-c S-l F or MLF or whatever you like. But you only have a patent application, not even a peer-reviewed paper concerning your concept. As far as I can tell right now… you have a unique “APPROACH” to an old idea. And you are the only one trying to call it something completely different by splitting hairs with me. Just like there are many different types and APPROACHES to the Tokamak design.. they are still under the same general concept. So even if your idea has a laser doing different things… it is still BSF.

BSFusion wrote:

As I said before, those links are irrelevent. Prosperetti uses a laser to create a vapor pocket inside of a tiny liquid filled tube. The focus of the laser is located a small distance away from the end of the tube, where surface tension creates a concave gas/liquid interface. The laser heats the liquid until a small vapor pocket forms. When the vapor pocket expands, it creates pressure in the surrounding liquid, which causes the concave geometry of the liquid to accelerate inward, similar to the way a “shaped charge” produces a high-speed jet of liquid metal. In summary, the article is about ink jet technology, not fusion.

One of the major advantages that BSF has over, what you are calling Prosperetti’s sonofusion, is that BSF’s laser impinges directly on the fuel, heating it to around 90eV (100,000 K) prior to compressing it. Laser compression, by the method of differential ionization, begins when material that is located at the periphery of the bubble is ionized, causing it to expand into the fuel, compressing and heating the fuel, until pressure (temperature and particle density) equalize. Note – the ideal ignition temperature for BSF is only 1.6 keV, much lower than the 4.3 keV of ICF.

This was all covered, in greater detail, in the patent application…

Yes, I get it. But I am not a lawyer trying to say that your idea is “LEGALLY” impinging on previous work. Your APPROACH is very different from what others have done. I get that just fine. Nobody is going to sue you.

BSFusion wrote:

…
But it is still very much in it’s infancy, and with all the stigma from Taleyarkhan, the physicist that has been found guilty of misconduct… you
have to prove more than the average scientist to gain acceptance for your hypothesis.

I asked you to stop, but you continue to imply that BSF has connections with Taleyarkhan and sonofusion. Why?

I did not imply there are “connections” between you and Taleyarkhan. I implied that the general concept of attaining fusion through Bubble Sonoluminescence has been tried before, and failed. I understand that your approach to this is very different. But you do have an uphill battle since much of the science has not been proven yet.

You seem to be WAY more worried about your patent being distinct, than the science being valid. All I am saying is that you need a lot more work and you NEED to get published. Until then, it is the same general concept that has been discredited.

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