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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.
Ryan Sacks, Gregory Moses, Vincent Tang, Kevin Kramer, Howard Scott, James Demuth
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 2 | October 2014 | Pages 349-357
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-789
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A parameter study of a proposed inertial fusion energy chamber is performed. A baseline case of a 6-m-radius chamber filled with 6 μg/cm3 of xenon is studied in detail. The maximum first-wall temperature is shown to be 1136 K with an overpressure of 5.83 &plus 10−3 MPa. A parameter sweep is conducted for the chamber by adjusting the first-wall radius from 4 to 14 m, changing the gas density and changing the fill gas from xenon to argon. The results set limits on the first-wall radius for different gases and densities. Analytic fits to simulation results allow their use in overall engine design trade-off studies.