I was new once here too. Software simulation seems such an obvious step for such as seemingly simple device. What little I knew. Like many I was inspired by Dr Buzzards Google Presentation to investigate fusion. The fusor is a mixed blessing since it is in the range of the individual serious engineer to build and achieve fusion, it just needs to be tweaked.. right? Nope. I say mixed blessing because its also within range of every crackpot in town. This fusor list has a delicate balance to walk, without the interest of at least the possibility of a world changing breakthrough there would be no traffic to pontificate to. On the other hand let the trolls run amuck and the noise to information ratio makes the site worthless.
I happen to write simulation software for a living, my own electronics simulation software packages or rather mostly emulation. Its an important distinction on the one hand you model the fundamentals and let the behaviour emerge, on the other you model the behaviour itself.
To explore the fusor I started like I always do with things, in code. I can build 'real things' well enough but I am not in this to make 'yet another fusor'. For those of you thinking cool, there is going to be some code for me to play with at the end of this post. Sorry. Let me explain, mastering the fusor is not about getting some software that you think represents the real world and the tweaking away at the parameters until it spits out what seems to be your very own little Eureka break-through. That's just so not how this thing works.
>I feel the most valuable question this would answer that so far it doesn't seem like is known, is where does the fusion occur most? In the transit zone between the shell and grid? Inside the plasma ball? On the grid itself?
This is from earlier in this thread and its really an important point. The fusor is a highly dynamic system and there is absolutely no way in hell it can be tweaked to become a net energy device. At any given moment depending on the dominant transient parametrics you can get (microscopic) amounts of fusion in any of these ways. It a moving target, a dynamic chaotic system. Capturing this in software so you can tweak it is not a good use of software. You would end up making assumptions about what is happening and invalidate the result in any case.
Nevertheless software does have a critical role to play in exploring fusor like dynamic systems. But sorry, you have to write it yourself for it to have any value. Its actually the process of writing the software that gives you the understanding of the processes. So a few years ago I did that, wrote a N:N particle simulator toolkit for exploring the fusor. The way it works is that you create various software experiments and run them. It spits out results like this
Actually I can't remember specifically this experiment. Its marked FICS in my toolkit (it was the last one I had loaded ) - so I think I remember I was trying to verify some of the principles of steves FICS setup.
I learned *a lot* about the fusor and dynamic particles in building the software and running the experiments. Here is a list of virtual experiments
'******* Tests **********
'testSynchronizer()
'testIonShaper()
'testElectronGlue2()
'demoBridge()
'demoStar()
'Test 1 with field..
'testFlat()
'testMagField()
'testSpin()
'testWave()
'testOscillator()
'testSynchronizer()
'testIonTrap()
'testElectronGlue()
'testIonTrap2()
'******* Experiments **********
' experiment = New IonTrapCoolor
' experiment = New MagneticLens2()
' experiment = New SwitchingCooler()
' experiment = New PathDampening()
' experiment = New DifferentialCompression2
' experiment = New MagneticLens()
' experiment = New EBDriftTrap()
' experiment = New DifferentialCompression
' experiment = New TargetTrap
' experiment = New SwitchingCirculiser()
' experiment = New EBDrift()
' experiment = New PingPong()
' experiment = New VelocityFocus()
' experiment = New VisualiseMagneticField
' experiment = New Cyclotron()
' experiment = New SpinningDisk
' experiment = New PulseSplitter
' experiment = New ForceBetweenChargedPlates
experiment = New FICS
For Each instrument As Instrument In experiment.getInstruments
Panel2.Controls.Add(instrument.create())
Next
experiment.runSim()
- you can see its for only for my use as a coder because instead of fancy user interfaces and select boxes I just have commented out the experiment when I created a new one.
So this my point, even if you go ahead and download a somewhat related open-source project its not going to be useful to you simply because you wont understand enough about its limitations and assumptions if you are only a user. All software of this type is based on assumptions all of which will invalidate the result if you are only trying to use it as a 'user'.
As for my take on the fusor. Its not a power device but it does give us hints and tangible starting place to begin building something. So this is how I use the software, not for modelling a fusor but for identify physically realisable building blocks for controlling the uncontrollable using symmetry and special case mathematics to "cross-out" the loss generating processes.
In fact I do have a design now based on my virtual experimentation, just maybe there is something in it. If I ever get my hands free for long enough I will invest in the proof of concept physical experiments to validate the building blocks of the design ( and will in the process of doing that no-doubt prove myself foolish ).
So in regard to software. Absolutely essential in my opinion but sorry its not a shortcut to glory, it *IS* the knowledge you seek and *you* have to write it to understand it enough for it to be useful.
JC