Hydraulic Atom Smasher

Steve Ivy

I have an idea I would like to run past you guys.

Picture the following, A large diameter thin walled perfectly spherical structure.

Actually picture two seperate spherical systems, identical in every way except the radi of the spheres.

For Instance say the first has a 1/4 meter radius and the other system has a 1/2 meter radius.

Now place each of these spheres/skins in high static tension by pressurizing the interior material. The interior material could be a solid or any sort of fluid(a gas, a plasma or a liquid)

What the interior and exterior materials are made of, is not the issue at this point.

The two things that are important is in this system that the system have as high a mechanical Q as is possible and that the interior material and exterior materials of the sphere have as large an acoustic mismatch as is possible.

Now that the basic structure is defined we move on to a more specific case. Say one where the interior is a high density liquid and he exterior is a low density gas.

Now the idea is to drive each such structure at it natural radial spherial resonant frequency. I assume that measures will be taken to damp out all other resonances other than the desired purely radial mode. (Use of phase locked loops and such to control the driving frequency and amplitude

Ok, now that each of these systems are resonating there will of course be a series of pressure nodes and anti-nodes (or pressure spheres and anti-spheres) set up within the interior of the sphere proper.

The real goal at this point is to compare effect of the different radi of the two systems.

I will asume that most of you have at least a passing fammiliarity with th phenomenon of sonoluminescence? If so you know where I'm headed with this and if not then read up on it a bit and then come back to my letter.

The real meat of this query is the following. Will the radius have any positive or negative affect on the magnitude of the high/low pressure cavitation bubble created at the center?

I propose that it will have a great affect.

I propose that on some physical scale such a resonating device must begin to generate nuclear reaction level pressures/temperatures at it's core.

In a conventional SL cell there is no apparent advantage in scaling the device size up so to the best of my knowledge none have bothered to try.

I propose that such a structure could be used as a cheap (spherical) as opposed to a linear accelerator.

I know based on the results of sonoluminescence experiments that pico second scale light flashes are observed during ordinary water based experiments but it appears to me that there is no reason to limit the working material to water. Water is apparently opaque to higher frequency light components as well as being a good neutron absorber. I would think that not all materials would be so opaque or such good neutron absorbers and thus could lend themselves more readily as a simple observation windows (as well as being the working fluid).

Concerns over the rapid cooling of the core due to conductive losses can be addressed if necessary by using a dense gas of better yet a dense plasma as the working "fluid" in the interior of the sphere. A simple RF heater should do the trick.

I will leave the details of the mechanical design of the sphere for later.

Thanks for reading:: Steve Ivy

Do you think it could work? If so say why, if not say that too.