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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
R. R. Paguio, W. D. Tatum, K. Tomlinson, G. E. Smith, M. P. Farrell, J. L. Taylor, R. R. Holt
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 3 | April 2018 | Pages 488-492
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1387016
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A class of dynamic material property (DMP) experiments on the Sandia National Laboratories pulse power Z-Machine requires planar samples to be held in a panel assembly. A custom press device to fabricate the assemblies has the ability to assemble one sample, window, or stack at a time, resulting in a 1-week lead time for a typical three-pocket panel assembly. Fabrication of targets with more than three pockets can take longer. In late 2015, General Atomics conceptualized a new multi-press device to enable several samples, windows, or stacks to be assembled simultaneously, and a prototype was designed, procured, and outfitted in 6 months. Since June 2016, this multi-press design has successfully assembled 60 planar DMP targets. The development considerations for this new device and the resulting benefits for the fabrication of targets are discussed.
