IEC Nuclear Fusion Reactor

[Tidbit77]

Knowing the kinds of people on spudfiles, I thought that you guys might like to see this.

During my short and now-ended hiatus from spudding I directed most of my time and efforts towards designing and building an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Nuclear Fusion Reactor (IEC fusor or farnsworth style fusor).

Here's a vid:
[youtube][/youtube]


Before I proceed into the description of my project, I should first say that this IS NOT BREAK-EVEN OR COLDFUSION!!! This is purely for research purposes only and is very hot fusion.

An IEC Fusor consists of two spherical, concentric grids inside of a vacuum chamber. The outer grid is grounded, and the inner grid is charged to a very high negative potential, in my case via a full wave rectified neon sign transformer (and eventually a voltage multiplier cascade on top of that!)

Due to electrostatic field emission of the inner grid the gas (deuterium for fusion) in the chamber is ionized (thus it has a positive charge) and accelerated towards the inner grid (negatively charged.)

At this point the ions have enough inertia to collide inside the inner grid (in the case of deuterium, some collisions will result in the fusion of the deuterium into helium.) The ions are then either remixed with electrons, resulting in a plasma discharge, or are accelerated through the grid.

My Fusor:

Specs:
Power supply-15 kv NST full wave rectified (soon will include a cockroft- Walton cascade) produces up to 9500v DC @ 32 milliamps

Vacuum Chamber- 6" pyrex bell jar (Stainless chamber under construction)

Vacuum Pump- Welch 1399, down to about 10 millitorr

Doesn't do fusion yet, all I have to do is leak in the deuterium and up the input voltage a bit.

I don't have too many pictures of the vacuum and electrical equipment, I'll get pics of those things later.

Learn more about this fusor on my blog: http://tidbit77.blogspot.com/

[deathbyDWV]

Ok well all I can say is... OMG that is amazing!!!

I know almost nothing about this stuff but it is so cool...
By plasma you mean super heated gas right?
If it is than does it get hot?

I... Wish I had one...

[BigGrib]

What practical applications does this have just wondering cause i know nothing about this stuff.

[inonickname]

What practical applications does this have just wondering cause i know nothing about this stuff.

Making neutrons. It is far too energy intensive and small to get usable energy from. You can actually purchase farnsworth fusors for laboratory use for making neutrons. With this specific one, it would probably be a bad idea to attempt fusion. There's no shielding as it's made from glass, and it could very well cook anything nearby.

I'm building one as well. I'm currently looking for a diffusion pump. I suppose if worst comes to worst I could make my own, but meh.



Nice work

[Tidbit77]

There are few practical applications for this one (although I won over $500 in prizes at my district science fair) other than research, there are even easier ways to do neutron generation. And i am not going to attempt fusion in this one, but I will use a 6" diameter spherical chamber made of stainless steel (with borax in water as a neutron moderator) to do fusion. I am also building an ion gun to attach to the fusor.

And the plasma discharge produced by his fusor is due to electron/ion remixing.

[john bunsenburner]

You make it seem so easy...

Great job!


P.S How much did that end up costing you???

[Tidbit77]

I think the ending price for fusor mk.I was around $500, granted I was able to get a vacuum pump for free...Fusor mk.II 's chamber has already surpassed that, but I can fund that with my winnings from the science fair.

[zomgwtfbbq]

This is all very interesting and you're tempting me to build one. I did a quick google and found

http://www.fusor.net/

Is this where you got most of your information for building a fusor? Or are there other websites that are better?

[inonickname]

This is all very interesting and you're tempting me to build one. I did a quick google and found

http://www.fusor.net/

Is this where you got most of your information for building a fusor? Or are there other websites that are better?

You should know how much work is involved.

A decent stainless one will often need TIG welds. Add in a lathe and it's getting expensive before you've even started. Add to that the vacuum setup, all the vacuum fittings, HV parts, a bottle of deuterium, regulators, measuring equipment, gauges etc.

It gets very expensive, and very difficult very quickly.

[john bunsenburner]

Deutrium is sold OTC?

[Tidbit77]

Yeah, you can get a lecture sized bottle for about $150, or you can build and electrolysis machinge and make it from heavy water.

And yes, i did the majority of my research on fusor.net

[ramses]

nice! did your winnings really total $500? How much of that was from district 5?

I blew maybe half of my winnings ($300) on stock for my lathe.

[Tidbit77]

I got about $450 from district 5, $100 from neosef.

[john bunsenburner]

Which is cheaper Tidbit?

[Gun Freak]

That's really cool... I have no idea what is it for though!