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A year in orbit: ISS deployment tests radiation detectors for future space missions
The predawn darkness on a cool Florida night was shattered by the ignition of nine Merlin engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The thrust of the engines shook the ground miles away. From a distance, the rocket appeared to slowly rise above the horizon. For the cargo onboard, the launch was anything but gentle, as the ignition of liquid oxygen generated more than 1.5 million pounds of force. After the rocket had been out of sight for several minutes, the booster dramatically returned to Earth with several sonic booms in a captivating show of engineering designed to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable.
G. M. Fuller, J. R. Haines, V. D. Lee, F. W. Wiffen, Y. Gohar
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 1095-1100
Blanket and First Wall Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A23004
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The first wall of the tokamak FED-A device was designed to satisfy two conflicting requirements. They are a low electrical resistance to give a long eddy-current decay time and a high neutron transparency to give a favorable tritium breeding ratio. The tradeoff between these conflicting requirements resulted in a copper alloy first wall that satisfied the specific goals for FED-A, i.e., a minimum eddy-current decay time of 0.5 sec and a tritium breeding ratio of at least 1.2. Aluminum alloys come close to meeting the requirements and would also probably work. Stainless steel will not work in this application because shells thin enough to satisfy temperature and stress limits are not thick enough to give a long eddy-current decay time and to avoid disruption induced melting. The baseline first wall design is a rib-stiffened, double-wall construction. The total wall thickness is 1.5 em, including a water coolant thickness of 0.5 em. The first wall is divided into twelve 30-degree sectors. Flange rings at the ends of each sector are bolted together to form the torus. Structural support is provided at the top center of each sector.