5 ms·
I think General Fusion's approach is one to keep an eye on. Instead of magnetic confinement, they use pistons to compress liquid metal into which the fuel is in
by bobsmooth 5y ago
I think General Fusion's approach is one to keep an eye on. Instead of magnetic confinement, they use pistons to compress liquid metal into which the fuel is injected. The force of the collapsing liquid causes the fuel to fuse, releasing energy which is captured by the metal and then extracted with a heat exchanger.
- trhway 5y ago>they use pistons to compress liquid metal into which the fuel is injected. i wonder whether (and how) they can do it better than the explosive lens of the fission primary. I mean they have to do it better as otherwise there wouldn't be need for the fission primary.
- laverya 5y agoTo me, this has an obvious answer - size/weight. A fission primary is in the 50-150kg range, and can spark quite a bit of a fusion secondary at once. How many tons of pistons would you need for the same effect?
- trhway 5y agoi meant the explosive lens of the primary, not the primary itself. The lens is formed by the shock waves of normal explosives moving at 10km/s. We know that that isn't enough to spark the fusion. Thus the question - can their pistons generate the better dynamics than the explosive lens? They have to in order to spark the fusion. If they can - then how?
- bobsmooth 5y agoExplosives are single use. GF's promotional videos say one fusion reaction per second.
- mrfusion 5y agoWhy doesn’t the heat of fusion vaporize the metal? Does the plasma touching the metal stop the reaction?
- sofixa 5y ago[i have slightly more than zero knowledge on the matter, what i say might be completely wrong] There are fast nuclear reactors which use lead-bismuth for the coolant ( the Soviet Alfa class submarine used them to mixed success, but that was in the 80s), so maybe there are alloys with fitting temperature characteristics?