Posted on 09/11/2018 6:19:50 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A long-time puzzle in the effort to capture the power of fusion on Earth is how to lessen or eliminate a common instability that occurs in the plasma called edge localized modes (ELMs). Just as the sun releases enormous bursts of energy in the form of solar flares, so flare-like bursts of ELMs can slam into the walls of doughnut-shaped tokamaks that house fusion reactions, potentially damaging the walls of the reactor.
To control these bursts, scientists disturb the plasma with small magnetic ripples called resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) that distort the smooth, doughnut shape of the plasma—releasing excess pressure that lessens or prevents ELMs from occurring. The hard part is producing just the right amount of this 3-D distortion to eliminate the ELMs without triggering other instabilities and releasing too much energy that, in the worst case, can lead to a major disruption that terminates the plasma.
...
Physicist Jong-Kyu Park of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), working with a team of collaborators from the United States and the National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI) in Korea, have successfully predicted the entire set of beneficial 3-D distortions for controlling ELMs without creating more problems. Researchers validated these predictions on the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) facility, one of the world's most advanced superconducting tokamaks, located in Daejeon, South Korea.
Researchers reduced the complexity of the calculations when they realized that the number of ways the plasma can distort is actually far fewer than the range of possible 3-D fields that can be applied to the plasma. By working backwards, from distortions to 3-D fields, the authors calculated the most effective fields for eliminating ELMs. The KSTAR experiments confirmed the predictions with remarkable accuracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
They are going to need a a bigger magnetic bottle !
I still recall what Dr. Robert Bussard (Of "Bussard Ram Jet" fame) said about Tokomaks.
"We spent 50 years studying Tokomaks, and what we learned about them is that they are no D@mn good."
Tomahawks,,,
I thought it said
.
TOMAHAWKS!
Good news
The site mispelled tomahawk as tokamaks.
Surprised they’d make this error...
As I read the descriptive solution, it resonates with my experience in how the human soul uses polarized thought fields to decrease frequency of consciousness in an inhibitory way thus decreasing the damage created by collisions caused by imbalance.
It keeps the rpms in check at lower frequencies.
(An excuse I use when I miss the entire tree.)
Still don't know what a tokamak is.
Nerdspeak, I guess.
This really sounds much too dangerous, much too unstable, to be a viable energy source.
BenLurkin,
Thanks for the diversity of excellent articles you post.
Tokamaks are devices used in the study of nuclear fusion.
Don’t know why you couldn’t just line the tokomak with some aluminum foil and wrap the whole thing with some baling wire, then cover it all with a couple layers of good tape...
Then again, this may all be a league or two beyond my comprehension...
Isn’t it ironic they put the “shield eyes from light” sign over the light?
rwood
“As I read the descriptive solution, it resonates with my experience in how the human soul uses polarized thought fields to decrease frequency of consciousness in an inhibitory way thus decreasing the damage created by collisions caused by imbalance.”
My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention!” — Hedley Lamarr
Well, if you used DUCT TAPE you might be on to something!
Then the next question is: Is optimal good enough?
A tokamac is a type of fusion reactor
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