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Second round of Launch Pad selections includes eight newcomers
The National Reactor Innovation Center at Idaho National Laboratory has announced 13 project selections across 12 companies for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, a Department of Energy–led program that integrates reactor and fuel facility authorization, testing, and deployment support for private nuclear developers.
The Launch Pad emerged from the Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program.
According to INL, projects selected include reactor development and nuclear fuel cycle advancements, including fabrication, enrichment, and conversion technologies.
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.