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Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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Disney World should have gone nuclear
There is extra significance to the American Nuclear Society holding its annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, this past week. That’s because in 1967, the state of Florida passed a law allowing Disney World to build a nuclear power plant.
Roger A. Vesey, Robert B. Campbell, Stephen A. Slutz, David L. Hanson, Michael E. Cuneo, Thomas A. Mehlhorn, John L. Porter
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 3 | April 2006 | Pages 384-398
Technical Paper | Fast Ignition | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1157
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fast ignition using pulsed-power drivers combines the efficient production of X-rays to drive fusion fuel assembly with precise ultraintense laser pulses for fuel ignition. Z-pinches convert electrical energy into thermal X-ray energy with high efficiency, which makes them attractive drivers for indirect-drive fuel assembly. Currently, experiments use the Z-pinch vacuum hohlraum, in which the Z-pinch heats a hohlraum that reemits thermal X-rays to drive the capsule. Surface-guided hemispherical capsule implosion experiments in Z-pinch vacuum hohlraums are in progress to study energetics, symmetry control, and pulse shaping. Simulations including radiation asymmetry and glide-plane physics have been performed to optimize the imploded fuel. Higher density capsule implosions at a given driver energy may be possible using the Z-pinch dynamic hohlraum, in which the Z-pinch plasma itself creates the hohlraum. Capsule and hohlraum designs for both vacuum and dynamic hohlraum sources are in progress, including liquid cryogenic fuel capsules. Analytic models for D-T fuel heating and burn have been developed for scoping purposes and breakeven scaling. Implicit particle-in-cell modeling of the interaction of laser-produced energetic particles with calculated fuel configurations demonstrates that details of the entire fuel/glide material density profile significantly affect the calculated energy deposition and thus the ignition requirements.