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Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
A more open future for nuclear research
A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.
Thomas V. Prevenslik
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 36 | Number 3 | November 1999 | Pages 309-314
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A111
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Sonoluminescence (SL) observed in the collapse of bubbles in liquid H2O may be explained by the Planck theory of SL, which finds basis in quantum mechanics and relies on the bubble walls to be blackbody surfaces as originally envisioned by Planck. By this theory, the source of SL is the electromagnetic (EM) radiation field of the bubble wall described by the absorption (and emission) spectra of liquid H2O from ultraviolet (UV) at ~254 nm to soft X rays. During bubble collapse, the resonant frequency of the bubble cavity always increases. If the resonant frequency coincides with the EM radiation field, cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) induces EM radiation at that frequency to be emitted from the bubble wall. Subsequently, the emitted EM radiation is absorbed. But cavity QED inhibits the spontaneous emission of any EM radiation absorbed at a frequency lower than the current bubble resonant frequency. Instead, the absorbed EM radiation may accumulate to be released as SL photons or it may be converted to free electrons either directly by the photoelectric effect or indirectly by the microwaves generated as the bubble collapses. By any combination of these processes, the collective EM radiation in the bubble wall is effectively focused on the gases within the bubble in the manner of a variable frequency UV to soft X-ray laser. A limited number of deuterium-deuterium (D-D) fusion events is suggested for ambient temperatures near the freezing point. Planck energies in excess of 10 keV/D2O vapor molecule are found as the D's in the low-density plasma are forced together under bubble wall collision pressures of ~200 atm. For a 20-kHz acoustic drive frequency, the thermal heating is of the order of a few microwatts, but neutrons should be detectable.
