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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
General Atomics announces breeding blanket test facility
General Atomics announced it is developing design concepts in collaboration with the Department of Energy for the Fusion Blanket Component Test Facility (BCTF), which will test full-scale breeding blankets.
“No one has tested a fusion blanket at this scale. While there are more research and development challenges ahead, a BCTF brings us closer to turning fusion from proven science into practical, sustainable power,” said Anantha Krishnan, senior vice president of the General Atomics Energy Group.
D. H. Zhu, J. L. Chen, Z. J. Zhou, R. Yan, R. Ding
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 2 | October 2014 | Pages 337-342
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-738
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To investigate the influences of dispersed lanthanum oxide (La2O3) additive on the properties of a tungsten (W)-based plasma-facing material, ultrafine-grained W-1% La2O3 composite has been successfully fabricated using the resistance sintering under ultrahigh pressure method, which can suppress W grain growth during sintering processes. Its relative density, Vickers microhardness, microstructure, and thermal conductivity have been analyzed and compared with those of pure W. Moreover, its behaviors under fusion-related conditions, i.e., edge plasma loading in the HT-7 tokamak and transient heat flux simulated by a high-intensity pulsed ion beam, have been evaluated. It is shown that without the fine-grain strengthening effect of dispersed particles, the La2O3 additive as second-phase particles being dispersed in W-based plasma-facing material degrades the material resistance ability under plasma heat loading.