Does it make sense to leverage magnetic field superposition by nesting one polywell inside another?
If a cube-type (like WB7), the outer one would be rotated 45 degrees roll/pitch/yaw to cover the cusps...
nested polywells - magnetic field superposition
I've not seen any knowledgable response to your question, so I will put forth a more philosophical one that is not burdoned with details.
Adding complexity may help, and it may hurt. Bussard, etel had demononstrated Wiffleball effects years earlier. Attempts to improve cusp comfinement with plugged cusps, repellars, etc. all apparently added more problems. The superficial simplicity of WB6 with its revolutionary curved magnet casings and spacings- presumably did not help confinement much (if any). What it did do was introduce a buffering effect so that a significant portion of the electrons that escaped confinement (hit the square magnets or escaped through a cusp) were recovered/ recirculated without the energy needed to introduce replacement high energy electrons. What the corresponding effects on the ions were is less clear to me. Or, to put it another way, both recirculation and adiquite confinement is needed. Bussard seems to have found a workable balance between them. Trying to improve one element may hurt the other to the extent where you lose ground. A parellel might be drawn to gridded fusors. There has been attempts to improve proformance by adding additional cathode grids with varying voltages to effectively guide the ions away from the wires (increase thier transparency). The results have been disappointing.
External/ supplimental magnetic fields may be needed or desirable in order to shield the interconnects/ nubs, and possibly aid in energy conversion, but the charm, if not critical feature of the Polywell is its straightforward geometry that seems to balance opposing forces that allows this revolutionary technology to work (hopefully).
Dan Tibbets
Adding complexity may help, and it may hurt. Bussard, etel had demononstrated Wiffleball effects years earlier. Attempts to improve cusp comfinement with plugged cusps, repellars, etc. all apparently added more problems. The superficial simplicity of WB6 with its revolutionary curved magnet casings and spacings- presumably did not help confinement much (if any). What it did do was introduce a buffering effect so that a significant portion of the electrons that escaped confinement (hit the square magnets or escaped through a cusp) were recovered/ recirculated without the energy needed to introduce replacement high energy electrons. What the corresponding effects on the ions were is less clear to me. Or, to put it another way, both recirculation and adiquite confinement is needed. Bussard seems to have found a workable balance between them. Trying to improve one element may hurt the other to the extent where you lose ground. A parellel might be drawn to gridded fusors. There has been attempts to improve proformance by adding additional cathode grids with varying voltages to effectively guide the ions away from the wires (increase thier transparency). The results have been disappointing.
External/ supplimental magnetic fields may be needed or desirable in order to shield the interconnects/ nubs, and possibly aid in energy conversion, but the charm, if not critical feature of the Polywell is its straightforward geometry that seems to balance opposing forces that allows this revolutionary technology to work (hopefully).
Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.
I second D Tibbets.
Might be interesting to try, though, if we had the money. Not sure exactly how superposition works. Are we just talking about making the interior fields stronger? How does this affect the geometry of the field lines (which must not intersect the coils)?
But I'm not sure how much good it would do to cover the cusps from the outside. The magnetic fields just push the electrons at right angles, so if they're already out...
Might be interesting to try, though, if we had the money. Not sure exactly how superposition works. Are we just talking about making the interior fields stronger? How does this affect the geometry of the field lines (which must not intersect the coils)?
But I'm not sure how much good it would do to cover the cusps from the outside. The magnetic fields just push the electrons at right angles, so if they're already out...