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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
James K. Garner, Mohamed A. Abdou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 837-847
Liquid-Metal Blankets and Magnetohydrodynamic Effects | Proceedings of the Seveth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Reno, Nevada, June 15–19, 1986) | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24842
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The work reported here attempts to: 1) define limits for the design windows for liquid metal breeders and coolants with various structural materials in various tokamak fusion reactors, and 2) quantify the impact of uncertainties in these limits on the design window. MHD pressure drop and heat transfer models are developed and used to quantify the effects of varying several tokamak reactor and blanket design parameters and materials properties. Uncertainties in the present pressure drop equations and calculational methods are also considered. Calculations are used to evaluate the impact of the coolant inlet temperature on the thermal cycle efficiency. An evaluation of the limits of uncertainty gives results ranging from a promising blanket candidate to a severely restricted design window, that would probably exclude self-cooled liquid metal blankets for large tokamaks from consideration. The major uncertainties in the design window result from the current lack of understanding of pressure drop and heat transfer in strong magnetic fields.