What would a fusion reactor look like from the outside?

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D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: What would a fusion reactor look like from the outside?

Post by D Tibbets »

paperburn1 wrote:Hmm I read something about relativistic effect of space war. basically at a certain point your shooting at where they were not where they are.
Indeed, leading your target applies at almost any speed, the gun sight computers in fighters consider this, and at even slower speeds, the bird shooter uses the computer in his head to lead the birds. With relativistic speeds the math changes some, but the concepts remain the same. The limiting factor is the intercept range - time relationship. A SAM system may detect an F15 at 300 km, shoot while the airplane is still closing at 100 KM and intercept at perhaps 50 km. An F22 might be detected at 20 km, shot at when it is at 20 km and is pulling away, and closest approach may be 10 km before the missile runs out of gas, or the lock is lost. Targeting time and range becomes more limiting than the range of the missile. At relativistic speeds this becomes even more limiting, though the weapon would probably need to be a laser, so the intercept closure speed compensates at least in part. The time to charge and lay the barrel may be critical. This is one advantage of vertical launch SAMs -faster response time. As the situation evolves, so do the solutions...

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: What would a fusion reactor look like from the outside?

Post by D Tibbets »

A space fusion reactor may veed a cover to contain fusion products- eg a D-D 1/2 catalyzed reactor, to shield against radiation, to capture the radiation and convert it to heat, etc.

A speculation for a P-B11 direct converting Polywell might not need a shell, but still need all of the infrastructure for particle injection, magnets, and direct conversion. There might be some modest percentage of the core exposed to the outside- sort of like looking at sunlight through thick tree branches. But, with P-B11 there may still be significant gamma ray radiation , the occasional neutron, and the escaped fuel particle streams and the (hopefully) small percentage of fusion produced ions that did not give up all of their KE . So a shell remains a requirement. The exception might be where the reactor is at a large distance. Perhaps a ring ship many Km wide. Having the shielding on the inner surface of the ring might allow for a partially exposed core, but the radiation flux versus the surface area exposure probably does not give the best weight advantage. Even this might be variable, at least for the charged particle radiation. Modest magnets next to the ring may dicert the particles away from the rings. Mmm...

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

JoeP
Posts: 523
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:10 am

Re: What would a fusion reactor look like from the outside?

Post by JoeP »

Exposed core = efficiency loss & with cool-looking factor increase

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