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I'm curious. Is there any practical benefit to building one of these apart from proving that it can be done?
by kondro 13y ago
I'm curious. Is there any practical benefit to building one of these apart from proving that it can be done?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- knappe 13y agoI would hazard a guess that learning might be a practical benefit. Otherwise, as sbierwagen pointed out, no, not really.
- kondro 13y agoI'm not saying that the effort was wasted. I just wanted to understand if this type of reactor had any direct practical benefits.
- sbierwagen 13y agoCommercially they're used as neutron generators for when you need longer lifetimes than ion-beam neutron generators: http://www.nsd-fusion.com/ http://www.nsd-fusion.com/ A modified version (accelerating electrons instead of fuel ions, using magnetically shielded and actively cooled superconducting accelerator grids) shows some promise for actual power production: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
- troymc 13y agoYes: Winning science fairs. On a more serious note, I suppose one of these devices could be used as part of an apparatus for doing a novel experiment.
- cypher543 13y agoIt's an excellent platform for learning about high voltage components, deep vacuums, particle physics, and monitoring and control systems.