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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
N. Aslan, T. Kammash
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 2 | September 1994 | Pages 184-191
Technical Paper | ICF Target | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A30342
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Interest in the use of magnetized targets to enhance energy multiplication in inertial confinement fusion has recently been revived after being ignored for some time. The addition of an externally applied magnetic field to a fuel volume to reduce thermal conduction losses represents one approach. The other approach is the subject examined, namely, self-generated fields created inside a target by beams that enter the pellet through a hole. The field, current, and pressure profiles in a two-region spherical plasma that might be representative of the magnetically insulated inertial confinement fusion concept are calculated in a self-consistent manner. The existence of a quasi-equilibrium soon after the formation of the plasma in the target is assumed, the appropriate magnetohydrodynamic equations in a multiregion plasma configuration are solved, and the parameters for such an equilibrium are established. An energy integral is employed to study the stability of these configurations against azimuthally symmetric perturbations, and the results are applied to some experimental as well as reactor-like systems. For certain configurations and input energies, such systems can be stable for the length of the burn.