Creating a neutron source

[Chris Bradley]

If the hydrogen atoms are both 'heavy hydrogen' (deuterium) then that sort of collision energy may result in fusion (into protons, neutrons, tritons and 3He/4He). That's what this whole web-site is about.

If the hydrogen atoms are both just plain, regular one-proton hydrogen then the probability of any sort of fusing event is too small to quantify. Only in the depths of a star, at plasma densities many times that of lead, is such a reaction likely to take effect. At much higher collision energies, though, at GeV levels, then two colliding protons will cause their disintegration and many odd-ball particles can then be observed as they break up, this being the principle of 'collider' physics studies of fundamental particles.

[Andrew Haynes]

Would the reaction of pair production at 1.022 MeV produce enough protons for the probability of fusing to happen.
Some people have talked about SRIM would that be-able to predict it.

Cheers for you patients

[Chris Bradley]

andrew haynes wrote:
> Cheers for you patients
Most of them have lived...




> Would the reaction of pair production at 1.022 MeV produce enough protons for the probability of fusing to happen.
No idea what that means. Sorry. Self-study is king here ... an ever-recommended activity.

[Andrew Haynes]

I'm in the process of building a marx generator to test this out. The only measuring equipment I've got is a multimeter.... if I ground the negative terminal and put the positive in the proton stream, what amount of voltage could I expect , F=mv2 , E = F/q

Cheers

[Chris Trent]

If the only measuring equipment I've got is a multimeter, then you are truly a long way from any of what you have described in your posts thus far. If you are going to be dealing with nuclear science you will first need the appropriate tools to measure the results. If part of your process is supposed to generate neutrons, then you need to have a way to detect them. You will need other detectors to make certain that you are not being exposed to harmful levels of various other radiation along the way (UV, X-Ray, etc).


As far as your proposed Marx generator. Without having the specifications of your proposed generator, I cannot even begin to guess what voltage, if any, you should expect.

I would recommend that you not do anything with such high voltage until you have learned enough on the subject to confidently predict the voltage that you should expect on your own. You will also need to study how to protect both yourself and your equipment from that voltage, it's not as easy as it sounds, and accidents can be deadly.

There are a number of very helpful HV forums out there that would be good reading. Feel free to post your design and voltage predictions in those forums or here for critique and safety tips. It may be a bit off topic, but we want you to be safe and HV is the most dangerous part of what we do.


One last comment: Start small.
It may sound rudimentary, but before building a massive generator, I challenge you to first design and build a circuit to generate 1000V from a single nine volt battery. I further challenge you to measure it and prove that it generates 1000V, (without destroying your multimeter).

[Andrew Haynes]

Just working on the caps, should allow rapid fire, might at later stage get more cw stages.

[Jim Cotton]

Danger Will Robinson...

Don't try this at home yet.

If you have no clue what you are doing, the 15 kV transformer is a great way to get killed.

Without scaling resistors the multimeter lets the smoke out between .4-1kV.

The meter leads may not even be good to 1kV (insulation).

STOP. read, learn.

jcc

[Chris Bradley]

(A smoking multimeter is the least of the issues....)

[Chris Trent]

I wasn't kidding on that 1000 volt circuit first. Build it, then try get up to 2000V and 3000V from the 9v battery. If you make mistakes you will learn from them VERY quickly, sometimes in a rather spectacular or painful fashion.

15KV is far more dangerous and difficult to handle than you may realize. Make the wrong mistakes with that and you will die.

[Andrew Haynes]

I've been experimenting with a ignition coil, and yes discharge a homemade cap throught both hands....lesson learned build it then stand away when you turn the power on, and use one hand.

To move forward I need to use more voltages, i'm also learning stuff from 4hv.org, read all general purpose and high voltage sections.

I will take it slowly thanks for the warnings

[Richard Hull]

I think a re-reading of Carl's reply post, above, is in order. A bit of self study on nuclear matters is in order and perhaps a discussion specific to the HV device might better be handled on one of the many web based high voltage discussion boards.

This discussion is no longer theroetical, (this forum), and is drifting in the direction of the fusor power supply forum.

Richard Hull

[Andrew Haynes]

Carl the idea is to send a spark into tungsten to release a neutron or proton. What I understand is a xray will come off. They only data I could find that might make a proton would be if its at 1Mev and the xray will break down to proton and anti proton. The angle is to deflect xray at 90degrees, trying to copy a xray tube from wiki.

There was some book describing a spark chamber with the xrays sent into hydrogen to produce a neutron, but I don't have any ideas about the energy need or how to find out, or what to search for. I do plan on staying I just need to get my head around the numbers, and I thought the capacitor arrangement on the marx might help someone out.

The neutron distance in air was at atmosphere pressure, and how far away the target can be, I'm assuming that above the energy to make a neutron come off, if you add more, the neutron will come off at a high energy level.

If you could fire a proton into D to make He and neutron using 1Mev you could get 2Mev out?, Is it just a small target?

Cheers

[Frank Sanns]

Andrew,

Enough information has been passed to you by other members of the forum as well as the administrators here. Please do a proper introduction of yourself according to the protocol of fusor.net and search the FAQs or other sources for the information that you seek.

This thread is now closed.

Frank Sanns