[belbear]

My idea is that you can diminish contamination from boron compounds to critical parts like electrodes, coils, observation windows and vacuum pump by creating a refrigerated “cold trap” inside your vacuum chamber. Also the outlet toward the vacuum pump can be cooled to trap the boron before it enters the pump.

Essentially, the coldest surface around will draw most of the excess borane toward itself, keeping everything else much cleaner. And if that cold trap is a smooth surface, it can be cleaned much easier than all those complex components.

You can add some coolant piping around part of the vacuum vessel, using part of the vessel wall as a cold trap. Or place a dedicated cold trap heat exchanger inside the vessel.

Essentially, it needs to be nothing more than a copper plate with some thin copper piping soldered to it, through which the coolant flows.

[belbear]

The conventional approach for fusion-powered flight is to use a fusion-manufactured fuel like liquid H2, But apart from the CO2 issue and fuel cost, little would change.
So I like more the idea of a direct-fusion powered aircraft. That would revolutionize commercial flight as much as the transition from props to jets did.

Direct fusion powered flight may indeed need some radical fuselage design, totally departing from the classic tube-with-wings model.

Among the possibilities are:
A triple-hull design, with two side hulls for passengers and the center one for the power plant. Or the other way around. Or a double-hull.
A thick-wing design (a.k.a. “flying-wing”) a huge wing that houses all fusion technology inside, the reactors furthest from the passenger section.
A tandem-hull tandem-wing design (actually two planes in line, the rear one for the fusion plant)
A vertical double-hull (two separate hulls above each other)…

Some of these have been built before, but apart from some military experiments, never used commercially.

Biggest problem is the cost of development. Most current aircraft technology was developed for the military with extensive funding during the cold war and its aerospace race: Jet engines, lightweight alloys, radar, inertial and satellite navigation….

With sufficient clearance between reactor and occupants, less neutron shielding is necessary.
Shielding may only be required toward the passenger and crew, not away from them since a lot of free air is also an excellent shielding.
A more lightweight and efficient material than tons of water may also be used.

The water can even be used for more than just shielding: Injecting some of it in a hot jet exhaust increases power the way an after-burner does. Handy for take-off, punching the sound barrier or emergency situations.
When freed from the burden of fuel consumption, supersonic commercial flight will again become a possibility. Cheap, this time.
Now a 747 does only one quarter-globe flight per day, often necessitating two crews on board. A Mach-3 plane could do 2 or 3 of those with one crew, multiplying revenue. And fly a half-globe in one convenient 5-hour trip. And why stop at Mach 3?

With direct fusion power, adding extra weight for shielding is not really a problem, since you can add more engine power, multiple engine configurations and lifting surface without needing to add more tons of fuel. As long as the current airports and runways can take it, it’s okay.

Scientifically this may all be safe and sane, but alas, we’re still living in the post-Chernobyl era. If the media blurt out that flying in nuclear planes will make your dick fall off, few passengers will board them. Even if you have a 1st class seating space for an economy ticket.

[belbear]

Allan Brewer wrote:
That’s reassuring, but where does most of the heat arise?
Presumably we can’t pump water or sodium through the anode or cathode as that would make the coolant electrically live?
Would coolant around the vacuum chamber block the X-rays to the onion?
Are there any tentative plans as to how cooling could be done?

Contrary to common belief, water CAN be used to cool electrically live components. Unlike tap water, fully deionized water is nonconductive. This is standard technology in high-powered transmitters that use triodes or klystrons, where the bare anodes, carrying up to 40KV, are in direct contact with the coolant water. A short length of glass or ceramic pipe is used to connect the HV component, for the rest ordinary metal pipes do the job. Saw it with my own eyes.

Disadvantages of water are its viscosity when liquid, its low boiling point and its corrosiveness when gaseous at high temperature. Helium has none of these drawbacks, so it may be a better primary coolant.

The X-ray “onion” has to be put inside the vessel, and cooled as well. Again, for cooling the X_ray converter, helium coolant is ideal because it does not block X-rays.
For the vacuum vessel and other electrical components (capacitors, switches, beam converter, transformers), ordinary water cooling can be used.

[belbear]

The advantage of a sphere over any other shape is that every part of the collector receives roughly the same intensity of radiation, assuming the plasmoid is in the centre.

Using depositing techniques to create a thick structure consisting of so many layers will encounter some serious roughness issues. Any uneven deposit creates a rough surface, and in a sputtering or vapor coating technique, the tiniest unevenness amplifies itself. (the tops always catch more new material than the valleys)
Making it increasingly difficult to ensure the conducting layers do not make contact somewhere and short circuit.

AFAIK, it has only been done with micron-thin layers, as in semiconductors, not a multi-inch-thick shell.

[belbear]

Tulse wrote: Does the x-ray capturing device really need to be spherical? I realize that shape probably optimizes the capture, but how less efficient would it be to simply create a box with flat sides of laminated materials? Surely that would be far easier to construct, and there may already be flat laminated foils in existence that could be used, rather than creating something new.

From an engineering point of view, a spherical device will be extremely difficult to construct because you can’t start from a stack of flat foils.
Most practical will be a cylinder with a flat endcap (and a hole to let the alpha beam pass through). The vacuum vessel will probably already have this shape.

[belbear]

Aeronaut wrote:
Yepper. That’s why so many of us are looking forward to a Space Elevator. For some missions, the SE could eliminate or greatly minimize the amount of thrust required by ‘launching’ from near the tether’s end.

Just a matter of finding out how to build 40000 klicks of carbon nanotube cable that weighs less than a conventional rocket can carry and you’re halfway there. Unfortunately the unique in-orbit assembly capabilities of the Space Shuttle won’t be available anymore to assemble the first geostationary satellite.
After all, now Constellation is cancelled, nobody knows when an post-Shuttle American manned spacecraft will ever fly again and how it will look like.

[belbear]

Rezwan wrote: OK, not sure about the white background. Is there a way to make the background grey? Or is it somehow transparent?

Also, the circle with circles is cool. At the same time, I was hoping for an image that captures the plasmoid more than the electrodes.

You know, this thing.

Also, we need a log for the new http://DensePlasmaFocus.org site – specifically for its forums. Something simple, quick. That’s going live in a few short moments. (It’s bad enough I’m behind on FFS site, now, we have another site).

I hope you got the Photoshop files I sent you? In Photoshop you simply use the “layers” to hide the white background layer to get a transparent logo. Or change the color of the layer to have a different one.

The white background is what you need for print (white usually prints nothing…). For web use, a transparent GIF is more appropriate. (See attachment, this is a transparent GIF with web color palette)

If you don’t have Photoshop, I can do that for you. Simply tell me what color (RGB value) and what size you want.

I chose the electrodes instead of the plasmoid because:

-Nobody has seen how a plasmoid looks like. Highspeed pictures can’t show the microsocopic structure and the rest is theory.

-A plasmoid is a rather fuzzy thing, hard to visualize, composed of little mass and a lot of energy.

-The theoretical shape of a magnetized plasmoid is a microscopic torus, same shape as the huge…. tokamaks! (ok, scientists, shoot me if I’m wrong)

-I wanted a simple clear-line 2D logo because that offers the most possibilities, whether it be web, printed, painted, tattoo or chiseled in a block of marble in front of the FFS building. 🙂

-Although a real FF reactor ultimately may have electrodes looking very different than this (Someone here suggested a crown-shape), this is how it started.
Look at the electronic symbol of a transistor. That resembles a point-contact device. Nobody makes these anymore since the early 1950’s, but that’s how it all started.

If this FFS-symbol sticks, it will always remind of FF-1, because there can only one be the first.

Attached files

[belbear]

Viking Coder wrote: I like belbear’s design too, except for the font choice. A simple logo mark is a necessity for branding and this is a good one. The mark can be used widely in place of the name; think about Nike’s swoosh, Apple’s bitten apple, Mastercard’s interlocking circles, etc.

As for inadvertent connotations, Focus Fusion Society is already handicapped. Urban Dictionary: FFS

LOL! Not to mention how many definitions for “FF” there already are!

[belbear]

Rezwan wrote: Thanks Belbear! It looks great! Dynamic. I feel James Bond might pop out at some point.

You’r welcome. If you like I can send you the Photoshop .psd files and the “Stop” typeface.

[belbear]

Here is my proposal for an FFS logo..

I borrowed the view from the business end of FF-1, where matter is to be converted to energy.

This circle-in-circles logo could also involve into a logo for focus fusion in general, to be painted one day on power stations, ships, trains…

Attached files

[belbear]

Lerner wrote: We’ll have more to report on in a couple of weeks when most of the switches have the copper inserts.

Shouldn’t you go for tungsten coatings for the main electrodes? Copper is not THAT much more resistant to powerful arcing than the original aluminum, so it will only postpone problems. I fear cost for tungsten will be a major issue however.

[belbear]

If the physics works out, the proof of concept for p-B11 fusion is there and things go bad with government or “faceless, evil megacompanies”, there is always an option for that “greatest sacrifice” an inventor can make to save the world:

That is, to throw every bit of knowledge out in the open, free for the taking, and watch those early FF generators pop up a few years later in countries like Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, India….

It may cost the people form LPP their future as a manufacturer and their income from patents, but it will earn them a place in the history books and may even save them from those freak accidents that sometimes happen to people who know too much and refuse to cooperate…. :ahhh:

I know, it sounds Hollywoodish but sometimes fact is stronger than fiction… (Like the fact that no moviemaker ever imagined the Soviet block could collapse so… peacefully)

[belbear]

Henning wrote:
Mainly there is no tritium. In 2030 he estimates of 30kg tritium worldwide, being optimistic he writes. A 1GW reactor consumes 200kg tritium per year. With no way of producing tritium (e.g. uranium depleted), and Li+n reaction being a bad contender (see PDF).

You mean something like:

D+T fusion produces 1 neutron and energy,
Li+n consumes 1 neutron and energy, produces 1 Tritium
So you need to catch ALL of them neutrons to “breed” just enough tritium to keep the Tok going, which means no neutrons left to boil the water?…

So you really gonna need to keep them bad ol’ fission reactors running to make tritium?
And then to think that Sellafield & co must have released tons of it in the past…

[belbear]

Rezwan,

Posting AVI’s now works, although I doubt its usability when only 500K size is allowed.
I could not play the avi directly from the web site (With sound, but no picture) but it did play when the file was downloaded and played locally.

But AVI’s are a real PITA anyway, could be this old, worn-out and often repaired Windows setup …

[belbear]

Rezwan wrote: Hi Belbear, please try again. I added avi’s as an acceptable attachment. Learned something about mime types in the process. Who knew?

So, try to upload so I can see if it works.

Thanks!

One more try.
Note that I deliberately kept quality low because this is just a demo.
Better quality (theoretically up to professional HDTV) can be obtained by installing better codecs.

Attached files

FF.avi (155 B) 

[Author]

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