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Starfish Prime
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Fuel Stored Energy: 942.42 TJ/kg

This seems implausibly high. Are you sure of your numbers here? It seems at least 50% higher than optimistic approximations of D-3He fusion, which seem to assume a rather optimistic burnup fraction.

Working backwards from your thrust figures gives a more plausible energy density (eg. ~170TJ/kg assuming the whole pellet mass contributes to useful thrust and everything except the 100g of fusion fuel is inert and fuel burnup is 100%, etc), so I can't quite tell where this figure is coming from.

Pellet Efficiency: 97.25% Thermal, 0.125% Neutrons, 2.625% X-Ray, etc Radiation

Your exhaust velocity figures seem to imply a fairly low propellant density, but a low density propellant (or hohlraum or whatever) and a comparatively small pellet is going to have a hard time absorbing all the neutrons and x-rays from whatever fusion reaction you're using. The chances of it doing so and thermalising nicely to get the figures you're quoting here are slim, to say the least.

Thrust at 127,471.96kN and an exhaust velocity of 3,794,355 m/s, and a mass flow rate (mDot) of 33.596kg/s.

Those numbers all seem to be basically OK, other than your slightly high exhaust velocity (though there are no efficiency figures anywhere here... presumably you're hiding them behind your exhaust velocity?). It also matches the ~240TW power figure.

What is missing are the workings you used to compute your 1000TW figure, and without those it is hard to say where you went wrong with that. Maybe you could include your working in your question?


I am open to any criticism for the propulsion system

It is hard to criticise when you give us so little to go with ;-)

Aside from the issues above though, this seems odd:

200m detonation range

This is a little confusing... what do you actually have in mind here?

I see figures of this magnitude appearing in the Medusa rocket idea, but you say "shoot the pellet at a certain distance behind the ship" which isn't compatible with the Medusa design at all. When I look at ICF rocket designs like the Hyde D-D, you have a reaction chamber which is several metres across with the nuclear blast in the middle. For other things like Orion, I see talk of standoff distances measured in maybe 10s of metres, and a quite different thruster design with much lower exhaust velocities. It is very hard to tell what your rocket is based on, or how you're expecting it to work!

Stack exchange doesn't really lend itself very well to critique, but you should include a bit more detail in future questions.

Fuel Stored Energy: 942.42 TJ/kg

This seems implausibly high. Are you sure of your numbers here? It seems at least 50% higher than optimistic approximations of D-3He fusion, which seem to assume a rather optimistic burnup fraction.

Pellet Efficiency: 97.25% Thermal, 0.125% Neutrons, 2.625% X-Ray, etc Radiation

Your exhaust velocity figures seem to imply a fairly low propellant density, but a low density propellant (or hohlraum or whatever) and a comparatively small pellet is going to have a hard time absorbing all the neutrons and x-rays from whatever fusion reaction you're using. The chances of it doing so and thermalising nicely to get the figures you're quoting here are slim, to say the least.

Thrust at 127,471.96kN and an exhaust velocity of 3,794,355 m/s, and a mass flow rate (mDot) of 33.596kg/s.

Those numbers all seem to be basically OK, other than your slightly high exhaust velocity. It also matches the ~240TW power figure.

What is missing are the workings you used to compute your 1000TW figure, and without those it is hard to say where you went wrong with that. Maybe you could include your working in your question?

Fuel Stored Energy: 942.42 TJ/kg

This seems implausibly high. Are you sure of your numbers here? It seems at least 50% higher than optimistic approximations of D-3He fusion, which seem to assume a rather optimistic burnup fraction.

Working backwards from your thrust figures gives a more plausible energy density (eg. ~170TJ/kg assuming the whole pellet mass contributes to useful thrust and everything except the 100g of fusion fuel is inert and fuel burnup is 100%, etc), so I can't quite tell where this figure is coming from.

Pellet Efficiency: 97.25% Thermal, 0.125% Neutrons, 2.625% X-Ray, etc Radiation

Your exhaust velocity figures seem to imply a fairly low propellant density, but a low density propellant (or hohlraum or whatever) and a comparatively small pellet is going to have a hard time absorbing all the neutrons and x-rays from whatever fusion reaction you're using. The chances of it doing so and thermalising nicely to get the figures you're quoting here are slim, to say the least.

Thrust at 127,471.96kN and an exhaust velocity of 3,794,355 m/s, and a mass flow rate (mDot) of 33.596kg/s.

Those numbers all seem to be basically OK, other than your slightly high exhaust velocity (though there are no efficiency figures anywhere here... presumably you're hiding them behind your exhaust velocity?). It also matches the ~240TW power figure.

What is missing are the workings you used to compute your 1000TW figure, and without those it is hard to say where you went wrong with that. Maybe you could include your working in your question?


I am open to any criticism for the propulsion system

It is hard to criticise when you give us so little to go with ;-)

Aside from the issues above though, this seems odd:

200m detonation range

This is a little confusing... what do you actually have in mind here?

I see figures of this magnitude appearing in the Medusa rocket idea, but you say "shoot the pellet at a certain distance behind the ship" which isn't compatible with the Medusa design at all. When I look at ICF rocket designs like the Hyde D-D, you have a reaction chamber which is several metres across with the nuclear blast in the middle. For other things like Orion, I see talk of standoff distances measured in maybe 10s of metres, and a quite different thruster design with much lower exhaust velocities. It is very hard to tell what your rocket is based on, or how you're expecting it to work!

Stack exchange doesn't really lend itself very well to critique, but you should include a bit more detail in future questions.

deleted 146 characters in body
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Starfish Prime
  • 8.2k
  • 31
  • 54

Fuel Stored Energy: 942.42 TJ/kg

This seems implausibly high. Are you sure of your numbers here? It seems at least 50% higher than optimistic approximations of D-3He fusion, which seem to assume a rather optimistic burnup fraction.

Pellet Efficiency: 97.25% Thermal, 0.125% Neutrons, 2.625% X-Ray, etc Radiation

Your exhaust velocity figures seem to imply a fairly low propellant density, but a low density propellant (or hohlraum or whatever) and a comparatively small pellet is going to have a hard time absorbing all the neutrons and x-rays from whatever fusion reaction you're using. The chances of it doing so and thermalising nicely to get the figures you're quoting here are slim, to say the least.

When I do a calculation based off the Thrust Power attained by the fusion pelletat 127, I get471.96kN and an exhaust velocity of 3,794,355 m/s, and a much higher mDot valuemass flow rate (mDot) of 33.596kg/s.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, and it is difficult to see where you might have gone wong as you haven't supplied any of your working atThose numbers all.

Working out seem to be basically OK, other than your thrust from the given mass flow andslightly high exhaust velocity (and assuming 100% efficiencies!) suggests you should have ~128MN of thrust, not ~128kN, and a three order of magnitude difference doesn't sound like it could be caused merely by adding on some efficiency factors. Something is wrong; either the calculations you haven't shared with us, orIt also matches the numbers you have~240TW power figure.

Feel free to update your questionWhat is missing are the workings you used to includecompute your workings1000TW figure, and thenwithout those it should be a lot more straightfowardis hard to see what has happenedsay where you went wrong with that. Maybe you could include your working in your question?

Fuel Stored Energy: 942.42 TJ/kg

This seems implausibly high. Are you sure of your numbers here? It seems at least 50% higher than optimistic approximations of D-3He fusion.

Pellet Efficiency: 97.25% Thermal, 0.125% Neutrons, 2.625% X-Ray, etc Radiation

Your exhaust velocity figures seem to imply a fairly low propellant density, but a low density propellant and a comparatively small pellet is going to have a hard time absorbing all the neutrons and x-rays from whatever fusion reaction you're using.

When I do a calculation based off the Thrust Power attained by the fusion pellet, I get a much higher mDot value

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, and it is difficult to see where you might have gone wong as you haven't supplied any of your working at all.

Working out your thrust from the given mass flow and exhaust velocity (and assuming 100% efficiencies!) suggests you should have ~128MN of thrust, not ~128kN, and a three order of magnitude difference doesn't sound like it could be caused merely by adding on some efficiency factors. Something is wrong; either the calculations you haven't shared with us, or the numbers you have.

Feel free to update your question to include your workings, and then it should be a lot more straightfoward to see what has happened.

Fuel Stored Energy: 942.42 TJ/kg

This seems implausibly high. Are you sure of your numbers here? It seems at least 50% higher than optimistic approximations of D-3He fusion, which seem to assume a rather optimistic burnup fraction.

Pellet Efficiency: 97.25% Thermal, 0.125% Neutrons, 2.625% X-Ray, etc Radiation

Your exhaust velocity figures seem to imply a fairly low propellant density, but a low density propellant (or hohlraum or whatever) and a comparatively small pellet is going to have a hard time absorbing all the neutrons and x-rays from whatever fusion reaction you're using. The chances of it doing so and thermalising nicely to get the figures you're quoting here are slim, to say the least.

Thrust at 127,471.96kN and an exhaust velocity of 3,794,355 m/s, and a mass flow rate (mDot) of 33.596kg/s.

Those numbers all seem to be basically OK, other than your slightly high exhaust velocity. It also matches the ~240TW power figure.

What is missing are the workings you used to compute your 1000TW figure, and without those it is hard to say where you went wrong with that. Maybe you could include your working in your question?

Source Link
Starfish Prime
  • 8.2k
  • 31
  • 54

Fuel Stored Energy: 942.42 TJ/kg

This seems implausibly high. Are you sure of your numbers here? It seems at least 50% higher than optimistic approximations of D-3He fusion.

Pellet Efficiency: 97.25% Thermal, 0.125% Neutrons, 2.625% X-Ray, etc Radiation

Your exhaust velocity figures seem to imply a fairly low propellant density, but a low density propellant and a comparatively small pellet is going to have a hard time absorbing all the neutrons and x-rays from whatever fusion reaction you're using.

When I do a calculation based off the Thrust Power attained by the fusion pellet, I get a much higher mDot value

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, and it is difficult to see where you might have gone wong as you haven't supplied any of your working at all.

Working out your thrust from the given mass flow and exhaust velocity (and assuming 100% efficiencies!) suggests you should have ~128MN of thrust, not ~128kN, and a three order of magnitude difference doesn't sound like it could be caused merely by adding on some efficiency factors. Something is wrong; either the calculations you haven't shared with us, or the numbers you have.

Feel free to update your question to include your workings, and then it should be a lot more straightfoward to see what has happened.