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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
M. Nakamichi, J. H. Kim
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 1 | July-August 2014 | Pages 157-162
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-745
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Advanced neutron multipliers with low swelling and high stability at high temperatures are desired for the pebble bed blankets of demonstration fusion power (DEMO) reactors. Beryllium intermetallic compounds (beryllides) such as Be12Ti are the most promising material for this purpose. To fabricate the beryllide pebbles, a new granulation process has been established that combines a plasma sintering method for beryllide synthesis and a rotating electrode method using a plasma-sintered electrode for granulation. In trial granulation examinations, prototypic beryllide pebbles 1 mm in diameter were successfully fabricated. This study describes the results of a crush test and the characterization of the oxidation properties of the prototypic beryllide pebbles compared with those of Be pebbles. The crush test revealed that the prototypic beryllide pebble was more brittle than a Be pebble, and its crush load is one-third that of a Be pebble. The oxidation experiment showed that the weight gain ratios of the prototypic beryllide pebbles were significantly smaller than those of pure Be pebbles. The results confirmed that the prototypic beryllide pebbles have better oxidation resistance than pure Be pebbles.