Posted on 04/22/2018 4:59:06 AM PDT by BenLurkin
As Dr Thomas McGuire, head of Skunk Works’ Compact Fusion Project, detailed in a 2014 report, the smaller reactor is more feasible than a large-scale one.
If the system functions as expected, the CFR could take 11kg of fuel in the form of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, and run the reactor for an entire year without needing to stop.
Throughout that time, it would be consistently pumping out 100MW of power, enough to power up to 80,000 homes.
When discussing how it could impact aircraft design, Lockheed Martin said that this amount of power would allow it to fly indefinitely and would only be hampered by the crew’s need for food and water on the ground.
(Excerpt) Read more at siliconrepublic.com ...
Vaporware.
These issues have led other researchers to question whether a tokamak might ever be able to serve as the basis for a practical reactor. Dr. Thomas McGuire, head of a team working on a novel Compact Fusion Reactor program, or CFR, for Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced projects division, had this to say on the matter in an interview with Aviation Week in 2014:
“The problem with tokamaks is that ‘they can only hold so much plasma, and we call that the beta limit,’ McGuire says. Measured as the ratio of plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure, the beta limit of the average tokamak is low, or about ‘5% or so of the confining pressure,’ he says. Comparing the torus to a bicycle tire, McGuire adds, ‘if they put too much in, eventually their confining tire will fail and burst—so to operate safely, they don’t go too close to that.’”
...
“The CFR will avoid these issues by tackling plasma confinement in a radically different way. Instead of constraining the plasma within tubular rings, a series of superconducting coils will generate a new magnetic-field geometry in which the plasma is held within the broader confines of the entire reaction chamber. Superconducting magnets within the coils will generate a magnetic field around the outer border of the chamber. ‘So for us, instead of a bike tire expanding into air, we have something more like a tube that expands into an ever-stronger wall,’ McGuire says. The system is therefore regulated by a self-tuning feedback mechanism, whereby the farther out the plasma goes, the stronger the magnetic field pushes back to contain it. The CFR is expected to have a beta limit ratio of one. ‘We should be able to go to 100% or beyond,’ he adds.”
hampered by the crew’s need for food and water on the ground.
...guess they came up with a disposable diaper system also...
I’d be using it immediately at start up....
BFL
now we’re talking
Give Lockheed a few billion and a couple of decades and they might be able to develop a disposable diaper.
Where’s the patent that shows how they plan on converting fusion energy to thrust?
Lockheed spent a lot of resources on vertical take off and nuclear power for aircraft. Neither they couldn’t make either one work.
(They left an abandoned, unsecured nuclear facility up in the north Georgia mountains. They didn’t spend a lot of money on lead or graphite. It was an “air shielded facility”.)
GE tried this in the 1950s. Put in 15 years and untold millions before realizing when flying this people would not look like people for very long.
I remember wondering about that back when they were talking about fission poowered planes. I was just a kid then but I understood about where thrust comes from.
Electric motors driving propellers would probably work the best; although steam turbines with shafts and gears might theoretically work, but with a hefty weight penalty.
They probably are working on it. The profit margins would be incredible during the 55 year R&D phase.
Wrong. It’s fraudware.
“Vaporware.”
Maybe so, but if they have a plausible bullshit story and a prototype, a little extra govt money might be a good idea.
The potential upside is beyond full comprehension.
Certainly, constant acceleration in outer space...years of acceleration...opens the door to speed of light travel.
Not to mention the myriad domestic applications.
Where’s the patent that shows how they plan on converting fusion energy to thrust?
...
Maybe there’s a way to heat the air going through the engines directly.
Patent?
Once the container for an ongoing nuclear blast is patented, it won’t take much of a pinhole to provide all the thrust needed!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.