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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. E. Sawan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 1 | July-August 2014 | Pages 272-277
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-717
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The amount and type of gaseous and metallic transmutants produced in tungsten (W) when used as a plasma-facing armor in magnetic (MFE) and inertial (IFE) confinement fusion systems were determined and compared to those obtained following irradiation in fission reactors. Up to ∼8% metallic transmutants are generated at the expected lifetime of the fusion blanket. Irradiation in fission reactors to the same fast neutron fluence yields a much larger amount of metallic transmutation products than in fusion systems. While the dominant component in fusion systems is rhenium (Re), osmium (Os) is the main transmutation product in fission reactors. The impact on the W properties needs to be assessed. The results of this work will help guide irradiation experiments in fission reactors to properly simulate the conditions in fusion systems by possible direct implantation of transmutation products in irradiated samples. In addition, the results represent a necessary input for modeling activities aimed at understanding the expected effects on properties.