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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
P. B. Parks, N. Alexander, C. Moeller, R. Callis
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 4 | May 2015 | Pages 792-801
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-834
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes two intermediate-scale experiments designed to test basic principles of waveguide pellet acceleration, a novel method of using microwave power to generate propulsive thrust from flash vaporization of a “pusher” medium to accelerate a frozen deuterium-tritium fuel pellet. Results from a low-power stage I experiment using a surrogate pusher consisting of an inert medium with volume-distributed metallic particle absorbers are in good agreement with Parks' wave attenuation theory. In stage II, a high-powered short-pulsed gyrotron source will be used to vaporize a surrogate pusher in a closed system (waveguide/test cell) without an accelerating projectile (pellet) to create a thrust-generating gas of interesting pressures ∼60 to 100 bars and temperatures ∼600 to 1000 K. To compare theory and experiment, the vaporization of various volatile organic compounds with suspended metallic particle absorbers must be examined from a detailed thermodynamic perspective, given that large deviations from ideal-gas behavior arise from the intermolecular forces when these solvents transition from ambient to a dense, warm, supercritical fluid. Using the Peng-Robinson real-gas equation of state, a closed-form expression for the specific internal energy U(V, T) was found that self-consistently includes the intramolecular rotational-vibrational energies, of relevance when measurements of the expanded gas state are taken on timescales faster than the molecular decomposition time. Other thermodynamically significant properties, such as the Joule-Thomson inversion curve, that were calculated from this treatment are in excellent agreement with reported experimental data. This lends further support to the use of surrogate pusher media in place of deuterium.