Dodec Magnetic field?

Discuss the technical details of an "open source" community-driven design of a polywell reactor.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

KitemanSA
Posts: 6179
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:05 pm
Location: OlyPen WA

Post by KitemanSA »

TallDave wrote:
He made a series of statements from which I inferred the statement.
That's OK, happens to me a lot too.
Without good magnetic protection, small size may have been an incidental consideration.
He seemed pretty adamant about minimizing unshielded areas.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced Bussard was working under the premise that you can't hide the interconnects and they will suck up electrons wherever you put them, so you just have make them as small as possible, which by geometric coincidence puts them at the funny cusps.
If he did believe that, I think him to be wrong. See my plots on the Optimal Size thread. The X-Cusp hides ALL metal very well thank you.

Besides, I don't think he thought that. I can't put my finger on the statement that makes me think that, but I'm pretty sure I read one. WOW, what a waffle statement!

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

KitemanSA wrote:
TallDave wrote:
He made a series of statements from which I inferred the statement.
That's OK, happens to me a lot too.
Without good magnetic protection, small size may have been an incidental consideration.
He seemed pretty adamant about minimizing unshielded areas.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced Bussard was working under the premise that you can't hide the interconnects and they will suck up electrons wherever you put them, so you just have make them as small as possible, which by geometric coincidence puts them at the funny cusps.
If he did believe that, I think him to be wrong. See my plots on the Optimal Size thread. The X-Cusp hides ALL metal very well thank you.

Besides, I don't think he thought that. I can't put my finger on the statement that makes me think that, but I'm pretty sure I read one. WOW, what a waffle statement!
I can't exactly put my finger on it - but it seems like a current carrying wire crossing the magnetic field of another current carrying wire will produce some interesting magnetic fields. Aiding on one side of the wire and opposing on the other.

Would this produce another cusp or just change its orientation?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

KitemanSA
Posts: 6179
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:05 pm
Location: OlyPen WA

Post by KitemanSA »

MSimon wrote: I can't exactly put my finger on it - but it seems like a current carrying wire crossing the magnetic field of another current carrying wire will produce some interesting magnetic fields. Aiding on one side of the wire and opposing on the other.

Would this produce another cusp or just change its orientation?
The right hand plot I showed on the other thread, repeated here:
Image
contained the interconnect current field you speak of. I varied it over several ordered of magnitude and found it had to get to be similar in magnitude to the X-Cusp cross connects to be detectible in the equivalent plot. When I plotted the radial field at the mid span, there is a very thin line that shows up.

I admit that my analysis is a bit crude, the elements are pretty big and the cross-section of the magnet is accounted for by approximate volume current nullification, but in general it is instructive.

Post Reply