Re: Alternate toroid shapes

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: Paul Nicholson <paul-at-abelian.demon.co.uk> 

John Richardson wrote:

 > Has anyone done any experimentation into toroid topload shapes
 > other than the typical round designs that all use?

AFAIK little has been done.

Toploads have two important parameters:

a) the amount of charge they hold per unit volt, a.k.a the
    capacitance.
b) the voltage at which they begin to issue streamers.

Toroids tend to have a larger capacitance for a given breakout
voltage, compared with sphere terminals.  And they seem to be
preferred for streamer formation, perhaps because of this.

But who is to say there isn't a better shape?   It could be
that the best streamer formation comes from toploads with modest
breakout threshold plus large charge storage.

You could approximate your proposed tear drop cross section with
a sphere or toroid with a disc shaped skirt, so that from a
distance it looks a bit like Saturn.   You would have to tell
us whether it behaves any differently to a toroid plus breakout
point.

Plenty to do here for theorist and experimenter.  See recent posts
by Antonio for the relevant modelling programs.
--
Paul Nicholson,
Manchester, UK
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