I can see the circuit sim ok in my Maxthon browser. I made a few changes in the spark gap and copied the exported link. It is long, but try it. It runs in a Java applet.
Spark Gap Circuit Sim
The key is the construction of the spark gap.
In Koloc's patent, cited by Papp, he describes a coaxial "gun" where the central electrode is actually a number of parallel electrodes twisted in a compound helix that impart curl, which in turn, causes a kink instability in the arc resulting in a coiled arc that then collapses into a central torus that, through the pinch instability then pinches off into a plasmoid that can remain stable in the atmosphere, aka "ball lightning". It was this plasmoid, constructed of boron-11 and hydrogen, that he envisioned being compressed by a piston to fusion unstable C12 decaying to 3 energetic alpha fission ignition.
My work with Koloc leads me to believe Koloc's main technical challenges were:
* His inability to obtain the desired O(ns) rise time and this was due to his reliance on capacitor-initiation of the plasma gun rather than inductor initiation.
* His inability to obtain a large enough capacitor bank.
James - thanks for that, and I see what you mean. Russ's spark-gap peters out at around 160V, judging by the videos. To get a low-voltage gap, it would need to be smaller and maybe lower pressure too. Batteries would also not give the picosecond rise-time Koloc wanted, either - capacitors will be faster than a chemical reaction, and have the advantage that you can load them with the energy you want to use. Batteries would keep the arc going until the batteries exploded, since with the arc being very low impedance most of the energy would be burnt in internal resistance in the batteries and cabling. What we really need to hit it with is a wall with fast rise-time, flat top and fast fall-time, with a short on-time and the odd few thousand amps. Somewhat difficult to achieve. I'm working on ideas to approach this.Quote from jabowery on January 31st, 2013, 09:54 AM The key is the construction of the spark gap.
In Koloc's patent, cited by Papp, he describes a coaxial "gun" where the central electrode is actually a number of parallel electrodes twisted in a compound helix that impart curl, which in turn, causes a kink instability in the arc resulting in a coiled arc that then collapses into a central torus that, through the pinch instability then pinches off into a plasmoid that can remain stable in the atmosphere, aka "ball lightning". It was this plasmoid, constructed of boron-11 and hydrogen, that he envisioned being compressed by a piston to fusion unstable C12 decaying to 3 energetic alpha fission ignition.
My work with Koloc leads me to believe Koloc's main technical challenges were:
* His inability to obtain the desired O(ns) rise time and this was due to his reliance on capacitor-initiation of the plasma gun rather than inductor initiation.
* His inability to obtain a large enough capacitor bank.
An ideal coil will produce *whatever* voltage is require to keep the current flowing if you try to interrupt it - it's the ideal current source. Useful for driving spark gaps and discharge tubes. Real coils aren't quite as good because of the parasitics and breakdown voltages, but can still be close enough. Dealing with the odd 100µH at a few hundred amps makes for a big core, though.
Thanks again for pointing at Koloc - I feel that's a really important document.
James - thanks for that, and I see what you mean. Russ's spark-gap peters out at around 160V, judging by the videos. To get a low-voltage gap, it would need to be smaller and maybe lower pressure too. Batteries would also not give the picosecond rise-time Koloc wanted, either - capacitors will be faster than a chemical reaction, and have the advantage that you can load them with the energy you want to use. Batteries would keep the arc going until the batteries exploded, since with the arc being very low impedance most of the energy would be burnt in internal resistance in the batteries and cabling. What we really need to hit it with is a wall with fast rise-time, flat top and fast fall-time, with a short on-time and the odd few thousand amps. Somewhat difficult to achieve. I'm working on ideas to approach this.Quote from jabowery on January 31st, 2013, 09:54 AM The key is the construction of the spark gap.
In Koloc's patent, cited by Papp, he describes a coaxial "gun" where the central electrode is actually a number of parallel electrodes twisted in a compound helix that impart curl, which in turn, causes a kink instability in the arc resulting in a coiled arc that then collapses into a central torus that, through the pinch instability then pinches off into a plasmoid that can remain stable in the atmosphere, aka "ball lightning". It was this plasmoid, constructed of boron-11 and hydrogen, that he envisioned being compressed by a piston to fusion unstable C12 decaying to 3 energetic alpha fission ignition.
My work with Koloc leads me to believe Koloc's main technical challenges were:
* His inability to obtain the desired O(ns) rise time and this was due to his reliance on capacitor-initiation of the plasma gun rather than inductor initiation.
* His inability to obtain a large enough capacitor bank.
An ideal coil will produce *whatever* voltage is require to keep the current flowing if you try to interrupt it - it's the ideal current source. Useful for driving spark gaps and discharge tubes. Real coils aren't quite as good because of the parasitics and breakdown voltages, but can still be close enough. Dealing with the odd 100µH at a few hundred amps makes for a big core, though.
Thanks again for pointing at Koloc - I feel that's a really important document.
A wonderful post.Quote from simonderricutt on January 31st, 2013, 03:55 PM James - thanks for that, and I see what you mean. Russ's spark-gap peters out at around 160V, judging by the videos. To get a low-voltage gap, it would need to be smaller and maybe lower pressure too. Batteries would also not give the picosecond rise-time Koloc wanted, either - capacitors will be faster than a chemical reaction, and have the advantage that you can load them with the energy you want to use. Batteries would keep the arc going until the batteries exploded, since with the arc being very low impedance most of the energy would be burnt in internal resistance in the batteries and cabling. What we really need to hit it with is a wall with fast rise-time, flat top and fast fall-time, with a short on-time and the odd few thousand amps. Somewhat difficult to achieve. I'm working on ideas to approach this.Quote from jabowery on January 31st, 2013, 09:54 AM The key is the construction of the spark gap.
In Koloc's patent, cited by Papp, he describes a coaxial "gun" where the central electrode is actually a number of parallel electrodes twisted in a compound helix that impart curl, which in turn, causes a kink instability in the arc resulting in a coiled arc that then collapses into a central torus that, through the pinch instability then pinches off into a plasmoid that can remain stable in the atmosphere, aka "ball lightning". It was this plasmoid, constructed of boron-11 and hydrogen, that he envisioned being compressed by a piston to fusion unstable C12 decaying to 3 energetic alpha fission ignition.
My work with Koloc leads me to believe Koloc's main technical challenges were:
* His inability to obtain the desired O(ns) rise time and this was due to his reliance on capacitor-initiation of the plasma gun rather than inductor initiation.
* His inability to obtain a large enough capacitor bank.
An ideal coil will produce *whatever* voltage is require to keep the current flowing if you try to interrupt it - it's the ideal current source. Useful for driving spark gaps and discharge tubes. Real coils aren't quite as good because of the parasitics and breakdown voltages, but can still be close enough. Dealing with the odd 100µH at a few hundred amps makes for a big core, though.
Thanks again for pointing at Koloc - I feel that's a really important document.
To get the whole system to work as a whole, the feedback current from the mated cylinder must be captured and compressed into a current pulse with a fast rise-time, flat top and fast fall-time, with a short on-time.
Is such a circuit possible?
James - thanks for that, and I see what you mean. Russ's spark-gap peters out at around 160V, judging by the videos. To get a low-voltage gap, it would need to be smaller and maybe lower pressure too. Batteries would also not give the picosecond rise-time Koloc wanted, either - capacitors will be faster than a chemical reaction, and have the advantage that you can load them with the energy you want to use. Batteries would keep the arc going until the batteries exploded, since with the arc being very low impedance most of the energy would be burnt in internal resistance in the batteries and cabling. What we really need to hit it with is a wall with fast rise-time, flat top and fast fall-time, with a short on-time and the odd few thousand amps. Somewhat difficult to achieve. I'm working on ideas to approach this.Quote from jabowery on January 31st, 2013, 09:54 AM The key is the construction of the spark gap.
In Koloc's patent, cited by Papp, he describes a coaxial "gun" where the central electrode is actually a number of parallel electrodes twisted in a compound helix that impart curl, which in turn, causes a kink instability in the arc resulting in a coiled arc that then collapses into a central torus that, through the pinch instability then pinches off into a plasmoid that can remain stable in the atmosphere, aka "ball lightning". It was this plasmoid, constructed of boron-11 and hydrogen, that he envisioned being compressed by a piston to fusion unstable C12 decaying to 3 energetic alpha fission ignition.
My work with Koloc leads me to believe Koloc's main technical challenges were:
* His inability to obtain the desired O(ns) rise time and this was due to his reliance on capacitor-initiation of the plasma gun rather than inductor initiation.
* His inability to obtain a large enough capacitor bank.
An ideal coil will produce *whatever* voltage is require to keep the current flowing if you try to interrupt it - it's the ideal current source. Useful for driving spark gaps and discharge tubes. Real coils aren't quite as good because of the parasitics and breakdown voltages, but can still be close enough. Dealing with the odd 100µH at a few hundred amps makes for a big core, though.
Thanks again for pointing at Koloc - I feel that's a really important document.
From my understanding of Koloc's compound plasma structure formation, the bolded statement "since with the arc being very low impedance" does not hold for an arc with the kink instability. As that kink's multiple helical turns collapse together to form a torus, each such collapse is a magnetic reconnection -- a singularity that can accelerate electrons enormously -- transforming the current of the arc into speed of electrons on the surface of the torus, circulating poloidally (the current that goes around the minor axis of the torus). In the final magnetic reconnection forming the torus from the kink instability, the torus's poloidal current consists of relativistic electrons which, due to time dilation, gives those currents long lifetimes and enormous magnetic pressure. The effective inductance of this structure is reflected in its magnetic pressure, but also in the non-trivial momentum of the relativistic electrons.Quote from simonderricutt on January 31st, 2013, 03:55 PM James - thanks for that, and I see what you mean. Russ's spark-gap peters out at around 160V, judging by the videos. To get a low-voltage gap, it would need to be smaller and maybe lower pressure too. Batteries would also not give the picosecond rise-time Koloc wanted, either - capacitors will be faster than a chemical reaction, and have the advantage that you can load them with the energy you want to use. Batteries would keep the arc going until the batteries exploded, since with the arc being very low impedance most of the energy would be burnt in internal resistance in the batteries and cabling. What we really need to hit it with is a wall with fast rise-time, flat top and fast fall-time, with a short on-time and the odd few thousand amps. Somewhat difficult to achieve. I'm working on ideas to approach this.Quote from jabowery on January 31st, 2013, 09:54 AM The key is the construction of the spark gap.
In Koloc's patent, cited by Papp, he describes a coaxial "gun" where the central electrode is actually a number of parallel electrodes twisted in a compound helix that impart curl, which in turn, causes a kink instability in the arc resulting in a coiled arc that then collapses into a central torus that, through the pinch instability then pinches off into a plasmoid that can remain stable in the atmosphere, aka "ball lightning". It was this plasmoid, constructed of boron-11 and hydrogen, that he envisioned being compressed by a piston to fusion unstable C12 decaying to 3 energetic alpha fission ignition.
My work with Koloc leads me to believe Koloc's main technical challenges were:
* His inability to obtain the desired O(ns) rise time and this was due to his reliance on capacitor-initiation of the plasma gun rather than inductor initiation.
* His inability to obtain a large enough capacitor bank.
An ideal coil will produce *whatever* voltage is require to keep the current flowing if you try to interrupt it - it's the ideal current source. Useful for driving spark gaps and discharge tubes. Real coils aren't quite as good because of the parasitics and breakdown voltages, but can still be close enough. Dealing with the odd 100µH at a few hundred amps makes for a big core, though.
Thanks again for pointing at Koloc - I feel that's a really important document.
The Papp machine may be forming a kink instability in a manner that differs substantially from Koloc's helical-core coaxial plasma gun. If so, the resulting magnetic pressure could be the origin of the mechanical pressure on the piston.
PS: When I said "O(ns) rise time" I meant nanosecond rise time, not picosecond rise time.
Maximizing kink instability is the key to producing a powerful plasmoid. These magnetic instabilities can be maximized by the engineering purpose built electrodes.Quote from jabowery on February 1st, 2013, 08:23 AM From my understanding of Koloc's compound plasma structure formation, the bolded statement "since with the arc being very low impedance" does not hold for an arc with the kink instability. As that kink's multiple helical turns collapse together to form a torus, each such collapse is a magnetic reconnection -- a singularity that can accelerate electrons enormously -- transforming the current of the arc into speed of electrons on the surface of the torus, circulating poloidally (the current that goes around the minor axis of the torus). In the final magnetic reconnection forming the torus from the kink instability, the torus's poloidal current consists of relativistic electrons which, due to time dilation, gives those currents long lifetimes and enormous magnetic pressure. The effective inductance of this structure is reflected in its magnetic pressure, but also in the non-trivial momentum of the relativistic electrons.Quote from simonderricutt on January 31st, 2013, 03:55 PM James - thanks for that, and I see what you mean. Russ's spark-gap peters out at around 160V, judging by the videos. To get a low-voltage gap, it would need to be smaller and maybe lower pressure too. Batteries would also not give the picosecond rise-time Koloc wanted, either - capacitors will be faster than a chemical reaction, and have the advantage that you can load them with the energy you want to use. Batteries would keep the arc going until the batteries exploded, since with the arc being very low impedance most of the energy would be burnt in internal resistance in the batteries and cabling. What we really need to hit it with is a wall with fast rise-time, flat top and fast fall-time, with a short on-time and the odd few thousand amps. Somewhat difficult to achieve. I'm working on ideas to approach this.Quote from jabowery on January 31st, 2013, 09:54 AM The key is the construction of the spark gap.
In Koloc's patent, cited by Papp, he describes a coaxial "gun" where the central electrode is actually a number of parallel electrodes twisted in a compound helix that impart curl, which in turn, causes a kink instability in the arc resulting in a coiled arc that then collapses into a central torus that, through the pinch instability then pinches off into a plasmoid that can remain stable in the atmosphere, aka "ball lightning". It was this plasmoid, constructed of boron-11 and hydrogen, that he envisioned being compressed by a piston to fusion unstable C12 decaying to 3 energetic alpha fission ignition.
My work with Koloc leads me to believe Koloc's main technical challenges were:
* His inability to obtain the desired O(ns) rise time and this was due to his reliance on capacitor-initiation of the plasma gun rather than inductor initiation.
* His inability to obtain a large enough capacitor bank.
An ideal coil will produce *whatever* voltage is require to keep the current flowing if you try to interrupt it - it's the ideal current source. Useful for driving spark gaps and discharge tubes. Real coils aren't quite as good because of the parasitics and breakdown voltages, but can still be close enough. Dealing with the odd 100µH at a few hundred amps makes for a big core, though.
Thanks again for pointing at Koloc - I feel that's a really important document.
The Papp machine may be forming a kink instability in a manner that differs substantially from Koloc's helical-core coaxial plasma gun. If so, the resulting magnetic pressure could be the origin of the mechanical pressure on the piston.
PS: When I said "O(ns) rise time" I meant nanosecond rise time, not picosecond rise time.
The first commandment of systems engineering is “don’t reinvent the wheel”.
The focused plasmoid has been under development for decades. Its power potential has now reached the level that produces hot fusion that is approaching break even.
We should look into testing such electrodes as a way to remove the need for radioactive material from the design of the Papp cylinder.
If I didn't know any better, I would think I'm looking a cylindrical rail gun here. Anyone else see what I see?Quote from Axil on February 1st, 2013, 12:48 PM
This particular type of dense plasma focus is an electrical discharge between coaxial electrodes in weak vacuum (the dense part) of about 12 torr. The electrical current sheath in the plasma between the coaxial electrodes experiences the lorentz force (like a railgun) which accelerates the plasma towards the end of the device (inner electrode is anode, outer tube is cathode/ground).
Let me add this video for those of us who still having some catching up to do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM4talPKvtU
Plain old xenon, argon, and krypton also produce x-ray wavelengths in an excimer laser.
This could be the reason what Papp packed the buckets with argon at high pressure (20 Bar). He wanted to create an x-ray laser using spark discharge electrical stimulation. Papp was one smart fellow.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excimer_laser
Such a laser operates at the following x- ray wavelengths:
Ar2 126 nm
Kr2 146 nm
Xe2 172 & 175 nm
Let me add this video for those of us who still having some catching up to do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM4talPKvtU
john Rohner finally did a proof of concept. It barely expands the balloon I highly doubt it could move a piston.
In JR's defence ,as he is saying ,there is no RF or current in the coils to ionize the gas.
I beleive that te whole concept is to ionize and exite the gases in order to get a powerful reaction.
And the idea to dump massive amounts of low voltage current over the plasma as we've seen in lots of replication attempts i beleive is not the way to go, it just "spends" to much energy to be efficient.
Lets give JR the benefit of a doubt and let him explain this in the 2 upcoming videos.
Atleast thats what im gonna do.
Lets see if grandma can grow some teeth :)
/Janne Ström