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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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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
A. D. Beklemishev, D. I. Skovorodin, K. V. Zaytsev
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 1 | July 2015 | Pages 21-27
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems 2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-883
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In recent experiments on Gas Dynamic Trap (GDT), as well as in earlier experiments on the GOL-3 device, a new and interesting class of oscillations was observed. Its mode structure and frequency resemble that of a sound wave trapped in the mirror cell as a resonator. Such modes can strongly interact with the bounce motion of ions and thus affect the axial confinement in mirror traps. The modes are probably similar to the global acoustic modes (GAMs) in tokamaks. However, there are significant difficulties in reconciling the existence of such modes with conventional theory of plasma waves. In both GOL-3 and GDT in relevant regimes the electron temperature is far below the theoretical limit for existence (let alone weak Landau damping) of ion-sound waves in homogeneous plasma. We explore different models of inhomogeneous anisotropic non-Maxwellian plasma of a mirror trap in search for possible explanations of the observed phenomena.
