From: steve_ivy@dlbweb.com (Fusion Dude)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.plasma
Subject: Gas Gun Fusion?
Organization: http://groups.google.com/


How about this idea...

Take two hyper-velocity light gas guns.
(The kind that guy used to create metallic
hydrogen a few years ago.)

Aim their barrels right at each other (co-axially)

Fire the guns into the two open ends of a very
powerful magnetic solenoid.

The fuel/projectiles will be something like lithium
deuteride with neutron moderator layers across
their bases and around the sides. Basically a modified
Teller Ulam structure in miniature with open front faces
for the lithium deuteride to meet.

These "bullets" will slam right into each other
right in the center of the solenoid.

So could a design like this get you fusion
conditions?

If not then you might "sweeten" the design
with a little fission fuel but I would really
prefer not to do that for obvious reasons.

You also might want to use deuterium or tritium
as the final stage (pusher) gas in the light gas gun.

If it works the real fun starts as you try to engineer
Gatling gun style light gas gun.

I think the required x-ray (or was it gamma ray)
heating for your Lithium deuteride may be generated
by that hypervelocity plasma (on impact) trying to
move outward in that magnetic field , radial fashion.

You should get an extreme burst of bremsstrahlung
radiation as this plasma tries to go outward. That
ought to really help heat the fuel.

If the projectiles are designed correctly with a neutral
particle shell of moderator material to slow the heat
loss you should get a near adiabatic heating inside the
impacting projectile.

Could it work?

If so I guess the hardest question is how strong does
the magnetic field have to be and how fast would the
"bullets need to go?

Assume adiabatic heating for right now.

Later: Steve Ivy
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P.S.

Just wanted to correct myself.

I think the primary heating mechanisms
will be synchrotron radiation (that is
radiation emitted by energetic charged
particles as they attempt to move
perpendictular to a strong magnetic
field) and simple kinetic energy from
the impact of the projectiles not
primarily from bremsstrahlung radiation
as I indicated. Although I do think there
will be a large component of
bremsstrahlung radiation as well since as
the particles hit they will find
themselves moving at a relative velocity
of 16 kilometers per second through the
other projectile.

I am just not sure if you would get
bremsstrahlung or not since the speed
of light in lithium deuteride would still
be a constant and I think to get
bremsstrahlung radiation you have
to have a particle move from a media with
one speed of light and suddenly be
decelerated by attempting to move in a
media with a much slower speed of light.

BTW I have learned that the faster
light gas gun at LLNL can fire a 15 gram
projectile at up to 8 kilometers per
second. (so take that KE times 2)

This will yield approximately 0.98
Mega-Joules available from the
projectiles alone.

An addition if one also uses a
collapsing magnetic field (such as the
one used by LANL's Magnetized Target
Fusion program) you can throw in an
additional couple of megajoules and a
magnetic field strengh of as much as
(~ 50-100 kilogauss) by LLNL's own
estimations.

So now we are talking about an
experiment with nearly 3 megajoules
of available energy per shot, a
potential of nearly 30 grams of
lithium deuteride fuel and excellent
containment (for a few nanoseconds
anyhow.)

So do we have a plan? Could this work?

Oh yeah I think the majority of the cancelled
momentum from the colliding projectiles
will be converted directly to X-ray
or even gamma-ray radiation due to the
presence of a strong magnetic field and a
ultra-dense ultra-hot plasma.

All things you want if you are trying to
emulate the conditions inside a nuclear bomb.

It should be no surprize that light gas guns
may also be made to simulate the radiation
conditions of a bomb as well since after all
light gas guns were originally developed to
simulate those conditions as part of the
nuclear stockpile stewartship program.

Later: Steve


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