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Fusion Science and Technology
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NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
S. W. Haan, D. S. Clark, S. H. Baxamusa, J. Biener, L. Berzak Hopkins, T. Bunn, D. A. Callahan, L. Carlson, T. R. Dittrich, M. J. Edwards, B. A. Hammel, A. Hamza, D. E. Hinkel, D. D. Ho, D. Hoover, W. Hsing, H. Huang, O. A. Hurricane, M. A. Johnson, O. S. Jones, A. L. Kritcher, O. L. Landen, J. D. Lindl, M. M. Marinak, A. J. MacKinnon, N. B. Meezan, J. Milovich, A. Nikroo, J. L. Peterson, P. Patel, H. F. Robey, J. D. Salmonson, V. A. Smalyuk, B. K. Spears, M. Stadermann, S. V. Weber, J. L. Kline, D. C. Wilson, A. N. Simakov, A. Yi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 70 | Number 2 | August-September 2016 | Pages 121-126
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-244
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experiments and analysis in the 3 years since the 2012 Target Fabrication Meeting have resulted in significant improvement in understanding of the requirements for high-performance layered implosions. Three issues have been identified that significantly degrade the performance of the implosions as they were originally configured for National Ignition Facility experiments: capsule support system, time-dependent radiation asymmetry, and transverse oxygen nonuniformity in the glow discharge polymer (GDP) ablator. Analyses suggest that the shortfalls in these three areas can explain the degraded performance of the National Ignition Campaign implosions. We present the status of work toward curing these three problems in the standard GDP ablator/gold hohlraum configuration as they affect target fabrication priorities. We also summarize the prospects for alternate ablators that might reduce these degradation mechanisms.