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As Nuclear News has done since 2022, we have compiled a review of the nuclear news that filled headlines and sparked conversations in the year just completed. Departing from the chronological format of years past, we open with the most impactful news of 2025: a survey of actions and orders of the Trump administration that are reshaping nuclear research, development, deployment, and commercialization. We then highlight some of the top news in nuclear restarts, new reactor testing programs, the fuel supply chain and broader fuel cycle, and more.
K.H. Bang, J.J. MacFarlane, J.J. Barry, M.L. Corradini
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 716-720
Inertial Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29429
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Condensation within rapidly expanding metal vapors has been experimentally investigated by exploding wires in a test chamber filled with helium or argon at various pressures (10 millitorr to 760 torr). Lead and silver wires were vaporized using a 5.0 kV, 15.4 - 500 µF capacitor discharge system. It was observed that the metal vapor prefers to condense as droplets with a resulting fog or aerosol cloud as opposed to surface condensation. The debris analysis showed that the resulting aerosol particles were spherical and the size ranged from 0.02 to 0.2 microns, suggesting the vapor condensed by homogeneous nucleation. The time-dependent conditions of the expanding vapor were simulated using a 1-D hydrodynamics code. The calculations indicate that the vapor quickly becomes super-saturated due to expansion cooling. The implications of our results for nucleate condensation in ICF target chambers are also discussed.