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A closer look at the initial NLIC selections—Part 2
In January, the Department of Energy announced its new Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC) program, inviting states via a request for information to express their interest in hosting a facility supporting work from the front to the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
By April, 26 states had expressed interest in hosting such a facility. At the end of July, the DOE signed memorandums of understanding with five states—Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah—to more closely explore the possibilities of state-federal partnerships. These MOUs are not firm commitments from either the federal or state governments. Time will tell which—if any—of the five states develop projects through the program. In the meantime, today, we are taking a close look at what Utah, Idaho, Tennessee can offer in terms of a preexisting nuclear sector that could support new fuel cycle developments.
Dennis L. Youchison, Michael A. Ulrickson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 2 | August 2013 | Pages 269-276
Divertor and High-Heat-Flux Components | Proceedings of the Twentieth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE-2012) (Part 1), Nashville, Tennessee, August 27-31, 2012 | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A18088
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Continual technology development for fusion has come to rely on the principle of "design by analysis" where advanced finite element analysis (FEA) or finite volume analysis provides insight on the performance of engineered systems. Extensive three-dimensional (3D) computations in fluid dynamics, heat transfer, neutronics, magneto-hydrodynamics and electro-magnetics are involved in an iterative design process for magnets, vacuum vessels and in-vessel components. Many difficulties arose in the integration of computer-assisted design (CAD) packages and the numeric models and results from different FEA codes. Over the last decade, engineers developed a vast array of specialized translators and interpolation programs to deal with geometry, mesh and load transfers between single-discipline codes, often with mixed outcomes. Now, several multiphysics codes that allow calculations on the same mesh and easy transfer of loads and other boundary conditions are emerging in the commercial market. These codes often have a robust library of physics models and solvers that address both steady state and transient phenomena and provide simultaneous solutions to heat transfer, fluid flow and structural mechanics problems. This article reviews three existing design tools, provides some examples of how the multiphysics codes are impacting practical engineering design, and identifies some important gaps that still exist today.