InsaneJournal

I've been in bed all morning, thinking about arc reactors. (Not a euphemism.)

Vibranium isn't an element that I know about, either it hasn't been discovered in the world I'm from or it doesn't exist because comic books.... (though I don't think it's entirely fictional. Hypothetically, I suspect it can be produced using cyclotrons, or circular particle accelerators, that can smash atoms together to generate heavier elements. But it is an unstable element that decays immediately.)

...I imagine the easiest was to create a chest full of kinetic energy would be fusion, nuclear fusion. Light atoms combine to form heavier elements; a small fraction of mass converts to energy. Because high temperatures are required to overcome the coloumbic repulsion between the nuclei being fused (two types, or isotopes, of hydrogen known as deuterium and tritium) combines to form a super-hot plasma which produces, alongside the helium, neutrons -- which have a huge amount of the desired kinetic energy) -- and Tony Stark, while indeed hot doesn't quite reach radioactive thermonuclear proportions...

Using palladium as a cathode becomes necessary, as it allows for cold fusion. Cold fusion is a hypothetical type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature, compared with temperatures in the millions of degrees that is required for thermonuclear fusion. Cold fusion is not exactly a true fusion reaction. When Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann achieved this cold fusion on a tabletop in 1989, but if it was a true fusion reaction, everyone in that room could’ve died from the radiation emitted. -- and as Stark does not emit any kind of ionizing radiation, I imagine we must be dealing with a kind of Pons-Fleischmann fusion. Of course there is still the risk of palladium poisoning -- but that's not nearly as horrific or immediately fatal). though, recently through a complex interaction of hydrogen and a host metal (palladium, nickel), low-energy neutrons are captured by nearby nuclei, releasing heat without creating dangerous radioactive by-products.

The only fusion reactor I know about was roughly the size of a shipping container, miniaturising it would be nearly impossible, I can't imagine -- it contained powdered palladium, hydrogen gas -- and a dash of a secrets. Heated with an electrical current, a reaction occurred, generating large amounts of excess heat -- the heat boiled water into steam. The steam could be used to spin a turbine to make electricity. Just like normal fission reactors. I don’t know how Tony did this part. It doesn't seem possible, perhaps it isn't a fission reactor but...

...A tokamak reactor, on the other hand.... A tokamak is a device using a magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. Achieving stable plasma equilibrium requires magnetic field lines that move around the torus in a helical shape.

-- Tokamak basically is a doughnut-shaped chamber used in fusion research in which a plasma is heated and confined by magnetic fields. The basic shape of tokamak actually resembles the arc reactor, and the little circle of blue light should be plasma. BUT there is no place for palladium (or vibranium) in this reactor, from what I understand. A tokamak produces a doughnut-shaped plasma. To do so it employs its strongest currents to produce the largest magnetic fields through its toroidal coils looped perpendicularly around the doughnut ring. A current is induced in the plasma from high currents in the poloidal (or horizontal) coils in the middle of the doughnut shape producing its own magnetic field. The combined effect creates a helical magnetic field. To induce the current in the plasma fields a changing current is required in the poloidal coils, therefore producing a more pulsed plasma response.

I need to make a shopping list.

I had a wonderful time last night, even if your repulsors don’t obey Newton’s third law of flying. ;)

♪ I knew you were trouble when you walked in ♫