Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

This forum is for other possible methods for fusion such as Sonolumenescense, Cold Fusion, CANR/LENR or accelerator fusion. It should contain all theory, discussions and even construction and URLs related to "other than fusor, fusion".
rjos
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by rjos »

I totally agree that exploring the domain from many angles is necessary. Assuming that a published path is the only way to go often leads us off a cliff.

Exploring helps us understand more fully the dimensionality of the problem at hand. It is fundamental in building a foundation. Further, it may help expose what is fruitless and what kind of dangers to consider.
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Chris Bradley »

rjos wrote:
> I totally agree that exploring the domain from many angles is necessary.

... but why on this forum? You don't appear to have read my post in this thread, nor the rules, it seems. Reading is good! It helps you understand stuff. Try it!
Doug Browning
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Doug Browning »

I'm a little puzzled by the rules. No offence really. But they seem to be along the lines of:

You can only post designs proven to work (of which there are none), and only use the tools proven not to work. No posting of anything that might waste the subscribers money, except what is already proven to waste their money.

A forum on CVD Film and Nano techniques certainly could be useful for subscribers who are already building vacuum systems.
Doug Browning
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Doug Browning »

The transmission line or wavefront idea for a fast switch is an interesting one. There are versions called Blumlein lines I think which are used for some of the rapid pulse generation projects.

Looking further a-field, the laser people are using chirped laser processing to get down to Femtosecond pulses. This scheme is using wavelength dispersion in optical materials to retard the Fourier components of the leading pulse edge in such a way as to line them up better, time wise. It would seem a logical extension to use dispersive dielectric material in an electrical transmission line to sharpen the leading edge, if suitable material can be found and this is actually working. The pulse length can be controlled via a stub transmission line or, as you mentioned, the pulse wave front reaching the edge of the planar capacitor sheet.

Another scheme could be to build the capacitor right into the multi-layer structure of a concentric stacked micro/nano tube (graphene/graphane alternately conducting/insulating layers) with the spark gap at the end of the tube structure effectively. Charge the cap somehow until it flashes over on the end. Would have to look carefully at the EM interaction between the layers, maybe the E/M fields would be interfering at the core. Micro layer(s) insulation probably would not support a useful high voltgage, but might support high current capability.

I would try the simplest approaches first though. I have in mind either a flying distributor point or make the capacitor terminals as a converging wedgelike gap in pressurized gas. The reactant filled carbon tubes get blown (by fan) through the converging terminal gap, with the increasing E field across it first aligning the fibers crosswise, then finally flashing across the gap thru them.

Then there are just plain old RF Mosfets that can do nsec switching times now for only a few $. They have to be driven by something fast of course, tunnel diode triggers are the traditional approach for sampling o'scopes.

OH, speed of light is about a foot per nanosecond, but slower in real conductors with dielectrics (about 70% to 80% speed)
Doug Browning
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Doug Browning »

"Nanotube might be a valuable container. Let’s look at some properties: ......."

You are on the right track here for what I would call slow or elegant fusion.
If the reaction can be done more slowly than a collision, it may be possible to get reaction outputs in more useable forms than the usual gamma, beta rays or neutrons or heat. A longer time scale allowing multiple photon emissions or step wise transitions in the nuclei (obviously speculative, this has not been seen thus far that I am aware of, other than for isomer decays).

Nanotubes do seem to fit the first logical steps to this interesting idea.
Your dimensional point is on the mark.
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Chris Bradley »

Don Bowen wrote:
> I'm a little puzzled by the rules.

Y'mean, rules that say 'use a real name' and 'post and introduction about yourself' - reeeal puzzling for sure!!

Yup, they seem to out fox a fair few that wander into the forum....

Not sure what is more puzzling, though; the inability to read, or the assumption no-one will enforce the rules?
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Chris Bradley »

Don Bowen wrote:
> I'm a little puzzled by the rules.

Y'mean, rules that say 'use a real name' and 'post an introduction about yourself' - reeeal puzzling for sure!!

Yup, they seem to out fox a fair few that wander into the forum....

Not sure what is more puzzling, though; the inability to read, or the assumption no-one will enforce the rules?
Doug Browning
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Doug Browning »

Oh, I see your point. I wasn't commenting about that specifically.
Doug Browning
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Doug Browning »

One meter long, absolutely perfect carbon nanotubes getting closer:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 112855.htm
Edward Miller
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Edward Miller »

Why do you need one meter long nanotubes? The history of fusion has shown us time and again that bigger does not equal better.

At the subatomic/quantum world things work differently. We need to stop devising clever techniques derived at the macroscale and instead learn to work within the nanoscale.
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Chris Bradley »



> ""This was all just talk; there was no quantitative analysis. And that's where this work makes an important contribution. It evaluates quantitatively, based on state-of-the-art computations, specifically how fast this annealing can take place, depending on location," he said."

I guess there are different degrees of 'just talk'.
Doug Browning
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Doug Browning »

The more practical schemes so far mentioned do not require anything like a meter of length, but the induction-collider in a fiber approach could clearly benefit from improved synthesis of this order. Since there was considerable earlier scepticism about the quality of nanofiber production capability, I just thought it would be useful to point out some progress (in theory at least) in that area. Maybe this will free up some mental barriers to thinking about these types of nano structured approaches for fusion. In ten years, this stuff may be on Ebay for cheap, with greatly expanded nano capabilities available in the commercial realm.

The rapid defect "healing" rate noted in the paper, when in the proper environment, may also be of some interest regarding radiation damage recovery. In ten years there might even be catalytic annealing nano-sleeves that slide along the fiber for rapid repair or even alteration of properties.

As to working within the "nano scale", lets call that the femto scale for fusion relevancy, I would point out that the target accuracy at CERN is far better than the macro scale diameter of the beam pipes they use. One needs to integrate the available precision over macro beam lengths to arrive at the nano or femto target accuracy (as well as the beam's transverse temperature, which has similar links with the available beam length). Flawless nano-precision over a meter length should give phenomenal targeting results.
Doug Browning
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Re: Carbon nanotube assisted fusion?

Post by Doug Browning »

More nano progress in the news.
This should bode well for any nano fusion schemes suffering slow radiation damage.

Apparently it's not hard at all to repair damage to carbon nano material with the right chemical environment:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.1487

Needs to be verified for nano tubes yet.
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