X-ray Reflection (may be a repeated topic)

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

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mattman
Posts: 459
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 11:14 pm

X-ray Reflection (may be a repeated topic)

Post by mattman »

Hello,

Anyone have a good way to reflect X-rays? This topic may have come up before. X-ray reflection may really help. John Lawson’s 1957 paper on fusion said that any machine with a plasma cloud is subject to the following constraints:

Net Power = Power Made – Power fed in – Conduction losses – X-ray losses

Now the fusor losses power through conduction, out the metal cages. The polywell reworks the fusor idea to reduce conduction losses. But we are still left with x-ray losses. There are two primary questions to ask:

1. If we reflect x-rays back into the center, recycling the lost energy, will it make any difference?

2. Is there a physical way to do this?

Exactly how much energy will be lost via x-rays is anyone’s guess. Models from Rider, Nevins are at best ballpark estimates. So much of their work focuses on x-ray losses. The Navy team may have measured this – but they have not published. The amount of x-rays can be predicted using equations which use the plasma density, temperature, ect… as input variables. Those equations are most probably experimentally derived models from plasma cloud work in the 70’s and 80’s.

I do not know much about X-ray optics. But, there is plenty of literature and expertise out there on x-rays. Any experts want to weigh in on this? The ideal solution would be some material – maybe carbon nanotubes which can be used as an x-ray waveguide (?) – which could be painted on a surface to reflect the x-rays. The first attempt would probably suck, maybe 5% of the incoming x-rays would be reflected, but that could hopefully be a starting point.

quixote
Posts: 130
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2010 8:44 pm

Post by quixote »

I think this answers both questions.

viewtopic.php?t=3271

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