On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 2:23 PM, David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote:
I did a bit of exploring to get a better understanding of the pressures > that arise from X-rays used within the hydrogen weapons. The article I > found in wikipedia leads me to believe that most of the pressure by several > orders of magnitude is due to ablation of material from a tamper as a > result of X-ray illumination. I believe that process relies upon the > conservation of momentum for the pressure pulse. Material is blasted off > the tamper and the resulting reaction conserves momentum. I find this > process very interesting but it is not clear how it would help in our > attempt to push hydrogen smoothly into the nickel nucleus. > I remember reading about the ablation of the tamper material. There is also a possibility that polystyrene is used in some designs, where the x-rays turn the polystyrene into plasma, and it is this that generates the pressure. But if it is plasma and not x-rays that are the source, it looks like there are hohlraum designs that use helium and hydrogen as the plasma (see the diagram towards the bottom). Perhaps it is the ionization of the fusion fuel itself that causes the pressure in this instance. https://lasers.llnl.gov/for_users/experimental_capabilities/hohlraum_energetics.php The methods used in fusion reactors and in bombs are ones that aim for maximum power and conversion of the fuel. I'm happy with something quite inefficient, if power and fuel conversion are the figures of merit, as long as the power is sufficient to drive the thermodynamics of the system as a whole. Rather than being a continuous, perhaps the fusion reaction occurs in short bursts -- there's some ionizing radiation that comes through, everything turns into plasma very quickly, some atoms fuse, power is generated and then the cavity thermalizes, and the plasma turns back into gas. This is just one possibility. The SPAWAR video is suggestive here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb9V_qFKf2M I suspect that the optical cavities with a Q or 2000 do a good job of > storing energy for a normal laser. Is that Q based upon the escape of a > very small percentage of the light rebounding within the cavity through one > of the mirrored end surfaces? Do you know if that happens to be the > optimum value for the type of laser you are discussing? This leaves me > wondering how one goes about reflecting X-Rays so that they can gain energy > with time. > I don't know if it has to do with the ends of the optical cavities per se, although in some arrangements I imagine it does. I know very little about x-ray lasers or even lasers in general. What is your thinking on the optimum value for Q? For a laser, the important thing would be getting stimulated emission, I think. In the present context, depending upon the type of radiation that is driving the reaction (x-rays or EUV), that implies suitable angles of incidence as a function of the transparency of the cavity. However, I'm not thinking of a laser per se to do the work here, although such a thing would be nice. A lot of reflection is what I'm hoping for. But to get a sense of the possible scale of a small x-ray laser, an article in phys.org recently discussed an extreme ultraviolet laser the size of a pin. That laser produces light at 13.5nm. http://phys.org/news/2012-06-plasma-startup-high-energy-smaller-microchips.html A thought just occurred to me. Could you use a torroid ring of material > that keeps X-rays reflected in a circular path that is a multiple of a > wavelength? I assume that the size of the ring could be adjusted so that > each small reflection angle does not allow the X-rays to be absorbed. Pure > speculation on my part here! > You appear to be describing a whispering gallery mode resonator: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whispering-gallery_wave#Whispering-gallery_waves_for_light . You mention that the most probable fusion reaction taking place ends with > the generation of helium. That might be the case, but Rossi will have a > lot of explaining to do if this is true. I am making a special effort to > take him at his word on the reaction products at this point but hope to > explore the other concepts soon if nothing pans out. There must be some > way to prevent the formation of gammas during the fusion process. A > retarding of the proton acceleration during the strong force interaction is > the best I can come up with at this time. Where are the demons when you > really need them? > Ed Storms's book, "The Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction," goes into more detail. The basic point he makes is that helium is the overwhelming nuclear ash in general. You can probably work backwards from the amount of helium above background and get a good approximation of the total energy developed. It is possible that Rossi's device yields copper as the main ash rather than helium, but it's probably worthwhile to vet this assumption before settling on it. I think his design is ultimately inspired by Piantelli's research, if I remember correctly, so that would be one independent point of reference to explore concerning the nuclear products of the E-Cat. Eric
