Chapter 11, Problem 8RQ

1. 8. In the 1950s, a team at Los Alamos National Laboratories built several devices called "Perhapsatrons," thinking that PERHAPS they might be able to create controllable nuclear fusion. After several years of experiments, they were never able to maintain stable plasma and abandoned the project.

The perhapsatron used a toroidal (doughnut-shaped) plasma confinement chamber, similar to those used in more modern Tokamak fusion devices. You have taken a job at a fusion research lab, and your supervisor asks you to develop a simple spreadsheet to calculate the volume of a torus within which the plasma will be contained in a new experimental reactor.

1. a. Create a table that calculates the volumes of various to ruses with specific values for r and R. The tube radii (r) should range from 10 to 100 centimeters in increments of 10 centimeters. The torus radii (R) should range from 1.5 to 3 meters in increments of 0.5 meters. The volume of a torus can be determined using V = 2π²Rr²
2. b. Using the table of volumes, create a graph showing the relationship between volume (ordinate) and tube radius (r) for torus radii (R) of 2 and 3 meters.
3. c. Using the table of volumes, create a graph showing the relationship between volume (ordinate) and torus radius (R) for tube radii (r) of 40, 70, and 100 centimeters.