[DUMB??] Design Question: Concentric polyhedral magnets

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

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jmc
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Post by jmc »

All this consideration of casting a shaddow to stop alpha particles is interesting, but at the end of the day it just comes down to the strategic use of placing shielding materials in the right location to block the alphas. I don't see the need for a seperate magrid.

laksindiaforfusion
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Post by laksindiaforfusion »

jmc wrote:All this consideration of casting a shaddow to stop alpha particles is interesting, but at the end of the day it just comes down to the strategic use of placing shielding materials in the right location to block the alphas. I don't see the need for a seperate magrid.
True, my theory is to shield the "shielders" :) by making them low power magnets as well. I dont know if anyone got the idea, or maybe it was too trivial :)
The believer's burden and a skeptics purpose

Billy Catringer
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Location: Texas

Post by Billy Catringer »

A simpler solution is to use boron as a sacrificial shield. You could coat the inner faces of the electromagnets with boron (using epitaxy), but it would probably be better to make a separate piece that closely fitted the inward face of the of the electromagnet tori. These shields should have a predictable lifetime and could be changed out before the electromagnets or their hulls suffered any significant damage.

In a reactor using d-d or d-t it might be best to use B10, as that material would do a good job of stopping neutrons. For a reactor using p-B11, shields of B11 would make the best sense. Any protons striking the shield would stand a good chance of yielding a fusion reaction, thereby contributing to system output.

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