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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Latest News
Disease-resistant cauliflower created through nuclear science
International Atomic Energy Agency researchers have helped scientists on the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius to develop a variety of cauliflower that is resistant to black rot disease. The cauliflower was developed through innovative radiation-induced plant-breeding techniques employed by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture.
R.W. Kincaid, M.A. Bourham
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 637-641
Plasma Fueling and Fuel Cycle | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40228
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The NCSU electrothermal plasma gun SIRENS has been used to accelerate plastic (Lexan polycarbonate) pellets, to determine the feasibility of the use of electrothermal guns as pellet injectors. The use of an electrothermal gun to inject frozen hydrogenic pellets requires a mechanism to provide protective shells (sabots) for shielding the pellet from ablation during acceleration into and through the barrel of the gun. The gun has been modified to accommodate acceleration of the plastic pellets using special acceleration barrels equipped with diagnostics for velocity and position of the pellet, and targets to absorb the pellet's energy on impact. The length of the acceleration path could be varied between 15 and 45 cm. The discharge energy of the electrothermal gun ranged from 2 to 6 kJ. The pellet velocities have been measured via a set of break wires. Pellet masses were varied between 0.5 and 1.0 grams. Preliminary results on 0.5 and 1.0 g pellets show that the exit velocity reaches 0.9 km/s at 6 kJ input energy to the source. Higher velocities of 1.5 and 2.7 km/s have been achieved using 0.5 and 1.0 gm pellets in 30 cm long barrel, without cleaning the barrel between the shots.