Optimizing Kerbal life support with linear fractional programming

Kerbal Space Program is one of my favorite games of all time. It allows the player to build and fly rockets on missions all around the Kerbal solar system. It simplifies many of the detailed complexities of planning space missions, and in doing so creates a whole ‘solar system’ of toy problems to solve, such as finding the optimal engine for a ... Read more 12 Sep 2021

Sauter shape studies, Part 2: poloidal circumference and surface area

This post is a continuation of the previous, so read that one first. In this post I’ll describe my efforts to compute an approximation for the poloidal circumference and surface area for Sauter’s shape, in the special case of $\xi=0$. Read more 31 May 2021

Sauter shape studies, Part 1: Overview, volume, and cross-sectional area

I’ve been developing a new “systems code” for studying the design and economics of fusion reactors. Fusion reactor systems codes used simplified representations of the various parts of the machine—the plasma, magnets, breeding blankets, electrical generatros, and so forth—in order to be able to compute and reason about aspects of the system as a... Read more 10 Apr 2021

An ellipse's parallel curve: length, area, and torus volume.

A parallel curve has a ‘fixed normal distance’ to a given curve. The parallel curve to an ellipse may be useful for modeling fusion systems: simple tokamak models are often considered as nested ellipses, but nested parallel curves might be more appropriate. Read more 06 Apr 2021

The Princeton Dee magnet

The Princeton Dee is one of the canonical idealized shapes for tokamak toroidal field (TF) magnets. Since increasing the magnetic field is so important for tokamak performance, the TF magnets are subject to extreme engineering: I’ve heard an engineer refer to them as “the most highly structural member ever built”. Energizing the magnet creates a... Read more 28 Feb 2021