ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
August 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NEA irradiation system ready to deploy at MITR
A new irradiation experimental system is ready for deployment. The rig, which is the focus of In-Core Real-Time Mechanical Testing of Structural Materials (INCREASE-I), an OECD Nuclear Energy Agency project, will be used to conduct stress-relaxation tests of stainless steel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Reactor (MITR), according to the OECD NEA.
Yasushi Ono
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 3 | April 1995 | Pages 369-373
Compact Torus (Field-Reversed Configuration, Spheromak) Concepts | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A11947108
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A novel slow formation method of field-reversed configuration (FRC) has been developed by magnetic reconnection of two force-free spheromaks with opposite toroidal magnetic field. The merging process cancels their opposite magnetic helicities, realizing a non-Taylor relaxation from the force-free state to the high-β FRC state with zero helicity. A significant increase in the ion temperature has been documented up to 180eV during this fully anti-parallel reconnection. The dissipated toroidal magnetic energy of the merging toroids is transformed mostly to the ion thermal energy, revealing a unique relaxation mechanism to the high-β equilibrium. The merging toroids are found to relax either to an FRC or to a new spheromak, depending on whether their total helicity is larger or smaller than a critical value.