Fusion Message Board

In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.

Subject: Re: A heretical thought
Date: Mar 16, 5:34 pm
Poster: IJV

On Mar 16, 5:34 pm, IJV wrote:

[snip]
>
>Unlike the world that Tokamaks and Inertial Confinement devices live in, all IEC efforts have faced great limitations in the application of modern advancements in technologies do to cost vs. budget restrictions, brought on by a lack of proper funding.
>
>The perfect example is the buying of modern ion guns.
>
>In a resent paper Dr. George Miley mentions that he will be pursuing the reintroduction of ion guns into the IEC scheme. Depending on the kind of ion gun he goes with which will have to have differential vacuum pumping, because that is what he specified in his paper, the IEC of the future may be a re-exploration of the same questions you are posing here today.
>
>Nathan K.

I do realise that reintorducing ion guns compromises the fusors basic simplicity and therefore cost.

But it seems to me that any scheme for overcomming the problems with the grids, especially the inner one, such as: active cooling or simply placing the grid much further away from the center would involve a much larger fusor. This would be more expensive anyway, and in the case of active cooling more complicated as well.

BTW is creating a hard vaccum in a large sphere more difficult compared to a smaller sphere?.

regards
IJV

PS I understand that the "control system" of virtually all fusors to date has been the experimenter keeping an eye on the dials and adjusting the voltage and vaccum levels by hand. Is this correct?. If so, I regard that as another big plus in this systems favour.