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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
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.
Yoshitaka Mori, Yasuhiko Nishimura, Katsuhiro Ishii, Ryohei Hanayama, Yoneyoshi Kitagawa, Takashi Sekine, Yasuki Takeuchi, Nakahiro Satoh, Takashi Kurita, Yoshinori Kato, Norio Kurita, Toshiyuki Kawashima, Osamu Komeda, Tatsumi Hioki, Tomoyoshi Motohiro, Atsushi Sunahara, Yasuhiko Sentoku, Eisuke Miura, Akifumi Iwamoto, Hitoshi Sakagami
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 1 | January 2019 | Pages 36-48
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2018.1499393
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The injection and engagement of pellets using laser beam irradiation is one of the key technologies to realize a laser-driven inertial fusion energy (IFE) reactor. We irradiated ultra-intense laser (11 TW: 0.6 J/110 fs 2 beams with a focal intensity of 510 W/cm) in counter configuration on flying 1-mm-diameter deuterated polystyrene beads beyond 600 pellets on an average at 1 Hz and 10 min per cycle for 4 years. An injection system delivers pellets with free-fall that consists of a header for pellet delivery by disk rotation and a detection unit for synchronizing the motion of a pellet for laser engagement in time. During laser irradiation, the free-falling pellet placement was at Δx = 1 mm, Δy = 0.4 mm on a plane perpendicular to the falling direction, and Δz = 0.1 mm in the falling direction at the moment of laser irradiation. Using a two-directional probe shadowgraph system, we succeeded in aligning the pellet-falling position with a laser engagement probability greater than 70%; the probability improved from the previous experiments wherein the probabilities were less than 20%. As a result, the shot probability is 27% for gamma-ray generation resulting from ultra-intense laser-matter interactions and 22% for detection of signals corresponding to fusion neutrons with a maximum yield of 4 10 n/shot. The neutron reaction induced from an integrated system of pellet injector and laser is a decisive step in the research and development of an IFE reactor.