ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2026
Nuclear Technology
March 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
Glenn Bateman, J. R. Fox
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 1363-1367
Magnet Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A23046
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ripple Reduction Poloidal Field (RRPF) coils together with blocks of ferro-magnetic iron shielding are used to design a commerical tokamak reactor similar in size to STARFIRE with only eight rather than twelve toroidal field (TF) coils. The RRPF coils function like segmented poloidal field coils, placed between the TF coils and the neutron shielding, carrying an average of ±6 MA turns of current in the torroidal direction. Together with an additional pair of vertical field coils carrying 4.8 MAT, they produce the poloidal field needed for a β ∼ 6% plasma equilibrium with elongation 1.68 and a pair of separatrices suitable for a poloidal divertor. The RRPF coils also reduce magnetic ripple near the top and bottom of the plasma while the laminated blocks of iron magnetic shielding placed under each TF coil reduce magnetic ripple at the outer edge of the plasma near the midplane from a maximum of 5.48% to less than 1%.