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Latest News
Second round of Launch Pad selections includes eight newcomers
The National Reactor Innovation Center at Idaho National Laboratory has announced 13 project selections across 12 companies for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, a Department of Energy–led program that integrates reactor and fuel facility authorization, testing, and deployment support for private nuclear developers.
The Launch Pad emerged from the Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program.
According to INL, projects selected include reactor development and nuclear fuel cycle advancements, including fabrication, enrichment, and conversion technologies.
L. Chen, W. Zhao, G. Zhong, C. Watts, James P. Gunn, X. Liu, Y. Lian, DLP Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 4 | May 2018 | Pages 568-578
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1415614
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The thermal performance of the divertor Langmuir probe conceptual design developed for the ITER divertor, which consists of a shielded probe bolted to a copper heat sink, has been predicted by the finite element analysis package ANSYS to have a high risk of damage due to poor heat transfer ability. In order to mitigate this risk, three alternative designs focusing on improving heat conduction have been proposed, and the power-handling abilities, damage risk, and interface challenges of the three designs have been compared. First simulation results indicate that a design involving casting a tungsten probe sensor into a copper heat sink could provide adequate heat-handling capacity. Elasto-plastic stress analysis will be needed to evaluate the thermal stresses at W/Cu interface in our future work. Langmuir probe prototypes will be prepared and high heat flux tests will be performed on electron beam facilities at the Southwestern Institute of Physics to verify the probe functionality once analysis has identified a suitable candidate design.