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 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
Ronald W. Petzoldt
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 831-839
Inertial Fusion Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963716
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experiment is being conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to investigate and demonstrate the engineering feasibility of accurately • injecting and tracking IFE targets into a vacuum chamber. A helium gas gun is used to inject non-cryogenic, aluminum and delrin (plastic) target-sized projectiles. They are optically tracked at three locations using photodiodes. An essential part of this experiment is tracking each projectile's position and predicting when and where it will arrive close enough to the driver beam focal spot so that with active beam steering, IFE driver beams can accurately hit each target Although the standard deviation in projectile position in each lateral direction is about 2 mm, projectile position measurements 1 m from the gun barrel have been used to predict position measurements at 3 m from the barrel with standard deviation less than 100 μm in the lateral directions. These results are encouraging and meet the expected beam steering distance and target position prediction accuracy requirements for indirect drive IFE power plants. Later this year, we intend to combine this experiment with a focused ion beam experiment and use real time position calculations to steer the beam through a small hole in the projectile.