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Copper melting behavior at extreme temperatures could inform fusion materials
Using SLAC’s electron camera, researchers recorded timestamps of solid copper atoms (orange) as they melted (yellow) after being blasted with laser heat. This graphic shows how copper atoms changed over a period of several femtoseconds (millionths of a billionth of a second), notated here as fractions of a picosecond. Instead of the predicted collapse, the researchers saw a gradual melting. (Image: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has announced researchers have conducted experiments testing how copper melts under extreme conditions, such as those it might be exposed to in a fusion machine. The results, published in Nature Communications, found that a copper thin film was more resilient to melting than models had predicted, uncovering molecular dynamics that had been missing from calculations.
“These results greatly improve the simulations we use to predict which materials have the best shot at surviving the extreme conditions of future fusion reaction chambers,” said Mianzhen Mo, the SLAC staff scientist who led the research.
Giuseppe Palmiotti, J. Blair Briggs, Teruhiko Kugo, Edward (Fitz) Trumble, Albert C. (Skip) Kahler, Dale Lancaster
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 178 | Number 3 | November 2014 | Pages 295-310
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE14-33
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project (IRPhEP) and the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) provide evaluated integral benchmark data that may be used for validation of reactor physics/nuclear criticality safety analytical methods and data, nuclear data testing, advanced modeling and simulation, and safety analysis licensing activities. The handbooks produced by these programs are used in over 30 countries. Five example applications are presented in this paper: (a) use of IRPhEP data in uncertainty analyses and cross-section adjustment, (b) uncertainty evaluation methods for reactor core design at Japan Atomic Energy Agency using reactor physics experimental data, (c) application of benchmarking data to a broad range of criticality safety problems, (d) cross-section data testing with ICSBEP benchmarks, and (e) use of the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments to support the power industry.