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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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NRC nominee Nieh commits to independent safety mission
During a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing today, Ho Nieh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as a commissioner at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was urged to maintain the agency’s independence regardless of political pressure from the Trump administration.
A. Ando, A. Imasaki, H. Tobari, T. Yagai, K. Hattori, M. Inutake
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 1 | January 2003 | Pages 130-132
Propulsion | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A11963579
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Macroscopic behavior of a high-beta and supersonic plasma flow produced by a magneto-plasma-dynamic arcjet (MPDA) was investigated in the HITOP device. A macroscopic instability was observed as a bulk rotation of the plasma plume eccentrically around the center axis of the vacuum vessel. We investigated whether it was caused by current-driven or pressure-driven instability. A plasma current circulating in the plasma plume was controlled by changing discharge current, magnetic field configuration and mass flow rate and by inserting a copper-mesh grid. It was found that the plasma plume was macroscopically stable when the current extending into the plasma plume was low and the safety factor was more than unity. This indicates that the observed macroscopic instability was mainly caused by a current-driven one.