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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
M. Ichimura et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 98-103
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11583
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Plasmas with high ion-temperature of several keV have been produced by using ion-cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) heating in the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror. In such high performance plasmas, high and low-frequency fluctuations are excited and ions trapped in the magnetic field interact with such fluctuations. Three types of wave-particle interactions have been observed in the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror. The turning point diffusion near the ion cyclotron resonance layer has been observed in minimum-B configuration on the anchor cell. Pitch angle scattering of high-energy ions due to the AIC modes and low-frequency waves which have differential frequencies between discrete peaks of the AIC modes are clearly detected. The drift-type fluctuations are clearly observed in the central cell. By using a semiconductor detector, high-energy ions are detected at the radial location far from the plasma edge. The fluctuation, of which frequency is the same as that of drift-type fluctuation, is observed in the signal of high-energy ions. From the pitch angle distribution of the phase differences between both fluctuations, radial transport of high-energy ions caused by drift-type fluctuations near their turning points in the confining mirror field is suggested in the experiments.
