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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.
C. B. Bigham
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 1976 | Pages 50-52
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A26808
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fission cross sections for 233U, 235U, 239Pu, and 241Pu reported in 1958 have been revised using the very precise, recently published, specific activities 21 405 ± 20 dpm/µg 233U, 4798.1 ± 3.3 dpm/mg 235U, and 746.19 ± 0.41 dpm/mg 238U. Revised ratios of fission cross sections at 2200 m/sec are: 233U/235U = 0.9142 ± 0.0012, 239Pu/235U = 1.2876 ± 0.0034, 239Pu/ 233U = 1.4084 ± 0.0036, and 241Pu/239Pu = 1.3506 ± 0.007. Revised fission cross sections at 200 m/sec in barns relative to σc(197 Au) = 98.7 ± 0.2 are: σf(233 U) = 527.4 ± 3.1 σf(235 U) = 576.9 ± 3.4, σf(239 Pu) = 742.8 ± 4.4, and σf(241 Pu) = 1003.3 ± 5.2. The errors do not include g-factor errors of ±0.2% for 233U, ±0.155% for 235U, ±0.285% for 239Pu, and ±0.7% for 241Pu.
