Are spherical tokamaks the same as spheromaks? - I mean exactly the same; are they just two words meaning the exact same thing or are they two sepperate things?
2007-02-25 05:49:15 · 2 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
No- The word tokamak is an acronym for the Russian words toroidal'naya kamera magnitnoi katushki, meaning toroidal chamber and magnetic coil.
2007-02-25 07:03:17 · answer #1 · answered by meg 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. The difference is the topology of the conducting walls of the vacuum chamber containing the plasma. A tokamak chamber has toroidal topology, and a spheromak chamber has spherical topology. That is, there is no conductor passing through the middle of spheromak. A spherical tokomak is simply one with an aspect ratio (major to minor radius) of about 1, giving the chamber an overall spherical appearance. Both plasmas, though, contain both poloidal and toroidal magnetic flux. The principle difference is that the ratio of the two fluxes for a spheromak is fixed, being defined by the Woltjer-Taylor minimum energy configuration that it spontaneously relaxes into.
2007-02-25 16:04:53 · answer #2 · answered by Dr. R 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋