Thread 16839339

>melt uranium into a liquid
>pump through a magnetohydrodynamic generator
>compress it until it becomes critical via magnetic confinement
>generate a shitload of power
why wouldn't this work?

i'm sure there's a lot of neat stuff you could do with uranium

>>16839339 (OP)
thorium is better in every way for power generation
we dont use it because military cant turn it into a weapon

>>16839353
i thought thorium wasn't fissile though with meant it needs a whole system just to initiate a reaction compared to uranium. something like needing to be turned into uranium as an intermediary step. why bother when you can just get uranium directly?

>>16839358
Thorium is a breeder reactor so yes it requires a secondary system to operate. But there are already plutonium breeder reactors in operation that convert non-fissile U-238 into fissile plutonium.
Thorium is still kinda a meme though and that other anon watches too many pop-sci YouTube channels.

>>16839339 (OP)
To answer your question, OP, it would "work." But boiling water works too. No need to do some fancy shit that opens more windows for failure due to incompetence among human workers.

>>16839364
i figure it would be a more elegant than utilize water though, primarily in terms of having the same system that generates the heat also exchange it in some way, although i don't really know how that would fair with molten metal.

>>16839339 (OP)
>compress a solid with a magnetic field
>pepe poster
As per usual, over-delivering even.

>compress a noncompressible fluid with a magnetic field
>pepe poster
As per usual, over-delivering even.

>>16839368
We can ignore the pedantry, he's obviously talking about obtaining criticality by adding enough uranium to the system while holding it in place via magnets.

>>16839365
Well air is a shitty conductor of heat. I wouldn't be surprised if, without doing any math, this system came out to be less efficient than a standard reactor. I frankly expect it given the strength of the magnets required and what it takes to maintain them.
It comes off as "I learned about this sort of thing very recently and haven't yet learned the limitations."

>>16839339 (OP)
Where are the control rods, anon?
ANON, THE CONTROL RODS!

>>16839400
what if you liquefy the control rods and make them move around in their own channels as well?

>>16839339 (OP)
>compress (uranium) until it becomes critical
Do you have any idea how fucking dangerous that is?

>>16839411
if you sustain the pressure requirements between criticality and uncontrollable feedback loop, it could be fine while being incredibly power efficient. i think the benefits outweigh the risks because current reactors are tuned by design to be super inefficient for safety reasons. i believe that bypassing that safety could lead to better performance.

Fluids are incompressible for the most part, your uranium would just heat up it wouldn't really generate much motion the MHD generator could work with. You could pump it through a thermocouple or thermiotic generator to get electricity though.

Gaseous uranium (UF6) is suitable as a working fluid though, and it has already been studied for magnetic confinement magnetohydrodynamic nuclear generator thingamagics.

>>16839417
*liquids are incompressible for the most part

>>16839415
>if you sustain the pressure requirements between criticality and uncontrollable feedback loop
How do you intend to do that?

>>16839420
basically make it so that the MHD generator that's gaining power keeps increasing pressure, generating more power. that's the controlled feedback loop portion.

when you want to lower the power output you route the flow to a secondary channel that's lined with a neutron moderator. then your control system just alternates between the two to maintain equilibrium.