ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM

THE DIFFERENT TYPES AND USES OF

MAGNETIC BOTTLES

SUBMTTED TO:
SIR AHMAD SHOAIB

SUBMITTED BY:
SOFIA MALIK
(ROLL NO 42)

DEPARTMENT OF BIO-MEDICAL
ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND
TECHNOLGY
DEFINATION OF MAGNETIC BOTTLES:
 The meaning of MAGNETIC BOTTLE is a magnetic field for confining plasma for
experiments in nuclear fusion.
 A magnetic field used to confine plasma, as during nuclear fusion
 A geometric configuration whose extent is outlined by magnetic lines of force that will
confine a hot plasma, and, in thermonuclear reactors, keep it away from the walls of the
chambers.

HISTROY:
Static magnetic field that, within a localized region, has a shape such that approaching
charged particles are repelled back along their path of approach.

A magnetic field is usually described as a distribution of nearly parallel non-intersecting field

lines. The direction of these lines determines the direction of the magnetic field, and the
density (closeness) of the lines determines its strength. Charged particles such as electrons
tend to move through a magnetic field by following a helical path about a magnetic field line.
If the field lines along the path of the particle are converging, the particle is entering a region
of stronger magnetic field. The particle continues to circle about the field line, but its forward
motion is retarded until it is stopped and finally forced back along its original path. The exact
location at which this mirroring occurs depends only upon the initial pitch angle describing its
helical path. Two such magnetic mirrors can be arranged to form a magnetic bottle that can
trap charged particles in the middle.

WORKING:
Magnetic Bottle is a device which uses Magnetic field for confinement of an energized
charged particle. The energy of the charged particle is kinetic by nature hence by the virtue of
its velocity.
Now this velocity itself is used for the confinement. Let’s see how.
The Lorentz force on a charged particle subjected to an electrical and magnetic field is given
by,
F = q (E + v × B), but since the electric field is absent, so it can be simply written as
F = q (v × B), where every physical quantity have their conventional meaning and are
expressed in vector quantities.
Since the Force is a vector product of velocity and magnetic field, it is perpendicular to both
them.
The Magnetic bottle uses its highly inhomogeneous magnetic field (two current carrying loops
placed at a distance maybe used to cause such a magnetic field) to direct the force and velocity
in such a way that, one of the component of the Lorentz Force is always in the opposite
direction to the velocity of the charged particle.

This picture will clarify a lot:

The Magnetic field is represented by blue lines. The velocity vector is represented by green
vector and force by red.
Let’s look at the velocity and the Force vectors. Velocity can be resolved along two directions,
one along the magnetic field and other, perpendicular to it.
Similarly force can also be resolved along two direction, one along the axis, along which
magnetic field is aligned at the end and other perpendicular to it.

The component of the force along the magnetic field is always opposite to the velocity
component along the magnetic field (you may assume this as the as simple harmonic motion
along the Bottle axis.) This motion provides the pitch for the helical motion. And when the force
(acceleration) makes velocity zero at the ends, the charged particle starts retreating.
This is the reason why a charged particle oscillates along the Magnetic bottle axis.
The remaining components of velocity and force contribute towards the circular motion part of
the helical motion.
Note: Helical motion can be considered as circular motion coupled with a linear one.
Magnetic field does no work on the particle trapped in the magnetic bottle, it just changes their
direction. It is the velocity of the particle itself and the force in the axial direction which causes
the oscillation.

Practically, this device is used for confinement of highly energetic plasma, which otherwise is
tough to contain elsewhere. If the plasma has very high velocity then, it may not have zero
velocity at the end and it will not bounce back at the end of the magnetic bottle and will come
out of it.
Natural phenomenon, the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis (Northern and Southern
Lights) occurs when charged particles escape from the Van Allen radiation belt of Earth. These
interact with the atmosphere through optical excitations of the gaseous atoms.

TYPES:
1.Field-reversed configuration
2.Tandem mirror

3.Reversed-field pinch

4.Spherical torus

Field-reversed configuration:
A field-reversed configuration (FRC) is a type of plasma device studied as a means of
producing nuclear fusion. It confines a plasma on closed magnetic field lines without a central
penetration.[1] In an FRC, the plasma has the form of a self-stable torus, similar to a smoke ring.
FRCs are closely related to another self-stable magnetic confinement fusion device,
the spheromak. Both are considered part of the compact toroid class of fusion devices. FRCs
normally have a plasma that is more elongated than spheromaks, having the overall shape of a
hollowed out sausage rather than the roughly spherical spheromak.
FRCs were a major area of research in the 1960s and into the 1970s, but had problems scaling up
into practical fusion triple products. Interest returned in the 1990s and as of 2019, FRCs were an
active research area.
Tandem mirror :
The Tandem Mirror Experiment (TMX and TMX-U) was a magnetic mirror machine
operated from 1979 to 1987 at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[1] It was the first
large-scale machine to test the "tandem mirror" concept in which two mirrors trapped a large
volume of plasma between them in an effort to increase the efficiency of the reactor.
The original TMX was designed and built in a short period between its conception at a major
physics meeting in Germany in October 1976, its design in January 1977, and its completion in
October 1978. Over the next year, it validated the tandem mirror approach. Plans began to build
a much larger machine based on the same principles, the Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF).
MFTF was initially just a scaled-up version of TMX, but when the design was studied it was
seen that it would not reach its desired performance. Some system was needed that would boost
the internal temperature of the fuel.
A solution was found in the form of "thermal barriers" which would trap high-energy electrons
and allow the fuel to be increased in energy without increasing leakage. While construction on
MFTF began, thermal barriers were added to TMX to become TMX-U in 1982. Unfortunately,
while TMX-U validated the thermal barrier concept in general, the barriers were not stable. It
appeared that MFTF would suffer the same problems. MFTF was almost complete by this time,
and funding was cancelled the day after its completion. TMX-U continued to operate until
February 1987.
Reversed-field pinch:
A reversed-field pinch (RFP) is a device used to produce and contain near-
thermonuclear plasmas. It is a toroidal pinch which uses a unique magnetic field configuration as
a scheme to magnetically confine a plasma, primarily to study magnetic confinement fusion. Its
magnetic geometry is somewhat different from that of the more common tokamak. As one
moves out radially, the portion of the magnetic field pointing toroidally reverses its direction,
giving rise to the term reversed field. This configuration can be sustained with comparatively
lower fields than that of a tokamak of similar power density. One of the disadvantages of this
configuration is that it tends to be more susceptible to non-linear effects and turbulence. This
makes it a useful system for studying non-ideal (resistive) magnetohydrodynamics. RFPs are
also used in studying astrophysical plasmas, which share many common features.
The largest Reversed Field Pinch device presently in operation is the RFX (R/a = 2/0.46)
in Padua, Italy. Others include the MST (R/a = 1.5/0.5) in the United States, EXTRAP T2R (R/a
= 1.24/0.18) in Sweden, RELAX (R = 0.51/0.25) in Japan, and KTX (R/a = 1.4/0.4) in China
Spherical torus:
A spherical tokamak is a type of fusion power device based on the tokamak principle. It is
notable for its very narrow profile, or aspect ratio. ... The spherical tokamak reduces the size of
the hole as much as possible, resulting in a plasma shape that is almost spherical, often compared
with a cored apple.

USES:
 Magnetic bottles can be used to temporarily trap charged particles. It is easier to trap
electrons than ions, because electrons are so much lighter This technique is used to
confine the high energy of plasma in fusion experiments.
 Magnets are present in most electronic devices. In fact, anything that has a motor uses a
magnet. Televisions, computers and microwave ovens all operate with magnets. Magnets
are used to keep refrigerator doors closed and are even mounted on trucks that clean
roads.
 Magnetic bottle is a device which helps to hold the hydrogen plasma(hydrogen from
which electron is removed) since, there isn't any vessel which can keep the hydrogen
plasmas altogether so that they can react to form helium at 10^7 degree celcius(as the
vessel will vapourise at such large temp.). Therefore, we use magnetic bottle which is
formed by 2 current carrying coils to induce magnetic field. Then the plasma is made to
enter in that field which starts moving in a HELICAL shape. It goes to the middle
because in the middle , there is less mag field in a try that it would come out of that trap
of mag. field but due to inertia it passes and goes to the other end.Again it tries to move
from higher to lower field i.e. it’ll go towards centre again but now also due to inertia it
passes by. This moves on and it gets trapped and now we can give it(plasma) a temp of
10^7 degree celcius by atom bomb and in results hydrogen plasma combines to form
helium giving large amount of energy.