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Latest News
WEST claims latest plasma confinement record
The French magnetic confinement fusion tokamak known as WEST maintained a plasma in February for more than 22 minutes—1,337 seconds, to be precise—and “smashed” the previous record plasma duration for a tokamak with a 25 percent improvement, according to the CEA, which operates the machine. The previous 1,006-second record was set by China’s EAST just a few weeks prior. Records are made to be broken, but this rapid progress illustrates a collective, global increase in plasma confinement expertise, aided by tungsten in key components.
R. L. Macklin, J. Halperin
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 64 | Number 4 | December 1977 | Pages 849-858
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A14500
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron capture by isotopically purified 232Th was measured at the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator. The pulse-height weighting method was used with small liquid scintillators to measure the prompt gamma-ray energy release following neutron capture. Resonance parameters were derived up to 10 keV. The average radiative width was (19.8 ± 0.2 statistical ± 0.4 systematic) meV for 50 resonances in the 2.6- to 4.0-keV interval. Strength functions 104S0 = 0.365 ± 0.024, 104 S1 = 1.078 ± 0.057, 104S2 > 0.842 ± 0.084, and y/D0 = 0.0198/(13.24 ± 0.71) were found to fit the average cross section well (to 105 keV) when allowance was made for p-wave inelastic competition above the ∼50-keV threshold. While the values stated gave the best fit (from 2.6 to 105 keV) when all four were allowed to vary, it is likely that “acceptable” fits could be forced for other values. Recent evaluations of the cross section range from 8 to 50% higher than results reported here.
