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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Michel Martin, Cyril Gauvin, Géraldine Moll, Olivier Raphaël, Olivier Legaie, Laurent Jeannot
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | March-April 2013 | Pages 82-86
Technical Paper | Selected papers from 20th Target Fabrication Meeting, May 20-24, 2012, Santa Fe, NM, Guest Editor: Robert C. Cook | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A16324
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Smooth and uniform solid D-T layers inside a spherical shell are needed to achieve ignition on the Laser Megajoule (LMJ) facility. The thermal environment around the capsule is the key to reach the low-mode D-T layer requirements. During the nineteenth Target Fabrication Meeting in Orlando, Florida (2010), an analytical model was presented to predict the low-mode time evolution of a D-T layer in a capsule caused by a thermal perturbation. The model showed that the dynamical response is ruled by the redistribution time constant. To check the validity of the model, experiments have been done with deuterium layers inside an integrating sphere. The use of an infrared laser to generate a volumetric heating of the deuterium allowed us to tune the conformation time constant. The experimental setup has also been modified to allow or cancel 300-K infrared radiation entering the integrating sphere, producing a local warming on the capsule. Using shadowgraphy techniques, we have been able to follow the dynamical behavior of the deuterium layer. Analyses conclude that the analytical model is right and can be used with confidence.