On Aug 22, 2007, at 5:11 AM, Jeff Fink wrote:
Recalling this line from your post in July, I was surprised to see
it had
already been done. The Farnsworth fuser was cranking out neutrons
at a rate
of 15.5 G-neutrons/sec in 1965 using a very modest amount of power,
according to the website:
http://www.farnovision.com/chronicles/fusion/vassilatos.html
In the above Gerry Vassilatos writes:
"On October 5, 1965 the Fusor Mark II Model 6 was tested. A
reconfigured, high precision ion gun arrangement produced l G
neutrons cc/see at 20 Kv. and 1 mA .... a record achievement. On
December 28, 1965 tritium was admitted into the test chamber ...
producing 2.6 G-neutrons/sec. at 105 Kv. and 45 mA.. With a mixture
of tritium and deuterium on the very next day Dr. Farnsworth's team
measured and recorded 6.2 G-neutrons/sec. at 170 Kv.."
"The Mark III Fusor produced startling high records in quick
succession. By the start of 196.5 the team was routinely measuring
15.5 G-neutrons/sec. at 150 Kv and 70 mA"
This makes no sense at all. The COP is not making significant
progress. Assuming each neutron can produce a whopping 100 MeV I get:
Gn/s Watts_in Watts_out COP
1.0 20 0.0160 8x10^-4
2.6 4750 0.0417 9x10^-6
15.5 10500 0.2483 2x10^-5
"Dr.Farnsworth cut the applied power...but the needle remained in
place for thirty seconds or more as the reaction continued."
Since fusion reactions get far less out than 100 MeV per two
reactions, there is no chance a self sustaining hot fusion reaction
was obtained. The 30 second continued run after shut-off was
probably due to a HV DC supply capacitor discharge time.
If a substantial portion of deflation fusion type reactions, and thus
helium producing reactions without neutrons, were obtained (not
likely) then a self sustaining reaction is not energetically denied,
but is denied because the confinement time of the fusor is very small.
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
