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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Remembering ANS member Gil Brown
Brown
The nuclear community is mourning the loss of Gilbert Brown, who passed away on July 11 at the age of 77 following a battle with cancer.
Brown, an American Nuclear Society Fellow and an ANS member for nearly 50 years, joined the faculty at Lowell Technological Institute—now the University of Massachusetts–Lowell—in 1973 and remained there for the rest of his career. He eventually became director of the UMass Lowell nuclear engineering program. After his retirement, he remained an emeritus professor at the university.
Sukesh Aghara, chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization, noted in an email to NEDHO members and others that “Gil was a relentless advocate for nuclear energy and a deeply respected member of our professional community. He was also a kind and generous friend—and one of the reasons I ended up at UMass Lowell. He served the university with great dedication. . . . Within NEDHO, Gil was a steady presence and served for many years as our treasurer. His contributions to nuclear engineering education and to this community will be dearly missed.”
A. Nikroo, D. Czechowicz, R. Paguio, A. L. Greenwood, Masaru Takagi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 45 | Number 2 | March 2004 | Pages 84-89
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST04-A432
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
New high gain designs for direct drive ignition on NIF require foam shells. Scaled down versions of these designs are needed for near term experiments on the OMEGA laser facility at the Laboratory Laser Energetics (LLE). These shells need to be about 1 mm in diameter and 50-100 m wall thickness and densities of 100-250 mg/cc. In addition, a full density permeation seal needs to be deposited for retention of the fill gas at room temperature or the ice at cryogenic temperatures. We have fabricated such shells using Resorcinolformaldehyde (R/F) as the selected foam material due to its transparency in the optical region. Extensive characterization of the wall uniformity of these shells has been performed. The foam shells have ~5%-6% nonconcentricities on the average. A full density permeation seal has been deposited on the R/F shells using two different techniques. In the first technique R/F shells are coated directly with plasma polymer to thicknesses of 3-4 m. In the second technique, R/F shells are coated with polyvinylphenol, using a chemical interfacial polymerization technique. Data on surface finish and gas retention for R/F shells coated by both methods are provided.