Get the latest tech news
Pass the mayo: Condiment could help improve fusion energy yields
Controlling a problematic instability could lead to cheaper internal fusion.
The work builds on prior research in the LeHigh laboratory of mechanical engineer Arindam Banerjee, who focuses on investigating the dynamics of fluids and other materials in response to extremely high acceleration and centrifugal force. The problem is that hydrodynamic instabilities tend to form in the plasma state—Banerjee likens it to "two materials [that] penetrate one another like fingers" in the presence of gravity or any accelerating field—which in turn reduces energy yields. Mayonnaise turns out to be an excellent analog for investigating this instability in accelerated solids, with no need for a lab setup with high temperature and pressure conditions, because it's a non-Newtonian fluid.
Or read this on r/technology