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“….The PF electrodes are damaged a little on every shot.”

You raise an interesting point.

How many shots will the electrodes perform before they degrade?

Certainly an important engineering question after a prototype is working.

It’s pure blue sky but one can dream of replacing the electrode with an

ultra stable EM field that would behave as an electrode.

The virtual electrode!

ct

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“Pinches are however harder to simulate since there are very large gradients in just about every parameter.”

Harder is a long way from impossible.

At one time digitally testing the theory of quantum chromodynamics was out of the question.

Eventually they built a dedicated computer for the job.

So too will there be a day when your services for FF designing are required.

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Thanks for the reality check.

Easy for an outside observer to fall into the fantasy trap.

Cars once modeled in clay are now designed digitally.

Nuclear bombs are now tested using finite element simulations.

Wind tunnels are replaced by supercomputers.

We need FF now by whatever methods are available.

Keep up the good work.

ct

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You make a good point.

However, an idea born in a US research lab (human insight) is often refined through Japanese engineering

(natural selection) into a superior product.

Focus Fusion researchers are struggling to build the first boron burning prototype, but later will

come years of tweeking to find the optimal structure.

ct

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Agree.

Imitating natural selection has been used in computer programming to find better algorithms.

Interesting how the technique might generate new designs for an optimal Focus Fusion device.

In the meantime nature has had a long time to produce plasmoids and there must be tricks

to be found just by careful observation.

ct

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Have a friend who works on Z-pinch and they have similar issues with their “bird cage” designs.

They have lots of shots to get things right, but its still an ongoing problem.

ct

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