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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2025
Latest News
The newest era of workforce development at ANS
As most attendees of this year’s ANS Annual Conference left breakfast in the Grand Ballroom of the Chicago Downtown Marriott to sit in on presentations covering everything from career pathways in fusion to recently digitized archival nuclear films, 40 of them made their way to the hotel’s fifth floor to take part in the second offering of Nuclear 101, a newly designed certification course that seeks to give professionals who are in or adjacent to the industry an in-depth understanding of the essentials of nuclear energy and engineering from some of the field’s leading experts.
Robert R. Peterson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 13 | Number 2 | February 1988 | Pages 279-289
Technical Paper | Heavy-Ion Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST88-A25105
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The limits on the cavity gas density required for beam propagation and condensation times for material vaporized by target explosions can determine the maximum repetition rate of heavy-ion fusion (HIF) driven reactors. If the ions are ballistically focused onto the target, the cavity gas must have a density below roughly 3 × 1012cm-3 at the time of propagation; other propagation schemes may allow densities as high as 1 Torr or more. In some reactor designs, several kilograms of material may be vaporized from the target chamber walls by target-generated X rays, raising the average density in the cavity to 3 × 1018 cm-3 or more. A one-dimensional combined radiation hydrodynamics and vaporization and condensation computer code has been used to simulate the vaporization and condensation of material in the target chambers of HIF reactors. Repetition rates in excess of 1 Hz are possible in the three types of target chambers studied. Means of increasing allowable repetition rates are discussed.