reactor/generator room

[kunkmiester]

For new build, for marine ships, aircraft, and possibly even spacecraft and nonmobile use, it might be feasible to design a standardized "power room" that would have a set output, and contain the shielding, cryo, alpha harvesting and voltage stepdown equipment. Basically a box that, while it may be assembled on site, and might be a slightly different shape, is mass produced and vehicles are designed around it.

I was mostly looking at a somewhat standardized layout for a sci-fi air/space ship running Mach-Lorenz thrusters.

The reactor I understand would probably be a 2 to 5 meter cube, as I understand it, depending on the power output. There would be vacuum pumps for atmospheric operation--in space you'd just vent the reactor I think. For military purposes, it would probably be best to skip trying to scavenge helium--it's another doodad to mess with. For space operation, the cryo plant would include a reserve tank or two to keep the cooling system full.

I was thinking to use the "venetian blinds" converter to harvest power, with the converters in tubes connected to the main reactor. Problem is, I'm not finding much on how big the converters might be.

I'm thinking the tube for the "blinds" would be a few meters long at least. So, with a five meter reactor, and five meter converters, you'd have a fifteen meter box, with probably at least three decks in the compartment, and subdivided as needed for other requirements. Do you think you could fit everything in a cube like that?

[D Tibbets]

The venation blind converters will have to be placed to intercept the alphas (I assume you are talking about a PB11 Polywell). These positions will be opposite all of the cusps, or perhaps just the corner cusps where most of the alphas will be escaping. These 'beams' may diverge quickly or they may stay fairly tight. Also, the alphas may be steered some by external focusing magnetic fields. So the configuration of the collectors may vary widely, based on these uncertainties. Concerning the length of the collectors themselves, I suspect they may not need to be vary long. Perhaps ~ 5-10 blinds, each seperated by an inch or more may be enough.
Another possibility is that the Polywell could be operated in a pulse mode. This would provide pulsed alpha flows so some type of MHD generator could be used to harvest the energy (similar to what is proposed for DPF). The patant application even mentioned pulsating modes with MegaHertz frequencies that could directly produce intense microwaves.

Dan Tibbets

[ladajo]

I believe that Bussard has already done some work on naval ship layouts.
As I understand they looked at submarine and surface ship layouts, based more around a cylinder space enclosure, vice a box. Not that it matters.

On that note, I also got a look at DDG 1000 this week, and can tell you that for sure polywell will have no trouble fitting. It is a big ship. They (Bath)have not yet set blocks togther yet, but have been working on sections. It is nice that the navy is also looking at IPS supporting a conversion to HVDC downt he road as well