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Kentucky disburses $10M in nuclear grants
The Kentucky Nuclear Energy Development Authority (KNEDA) recently distributed its first awards through the new Nuclear Energy Development Grant Program, which was established last year. In total, KNEDA disbursed $10 million to a variety of companies that will use the funding to support siting studies, enrichment supply-chain planning, workforce training, and curriculum development.
T. E. Gebhart, L. R. Baylor, S. J. Meitner
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 7 | October 2020 | Pages 831-835
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1812991
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Reliable mitigation is necessary to eliminate the detrimental effects of a disruption event in large high-current tokamaks such as ITER. To avoid serious damage to plasma-facing components during the thermal quench phase of a disruption, material is injected to radiate the plasma energy over the inner surface of the machine. The most promising method of material injection is a process known as shattered pellet injection (SPI). SPI utilizes cryogenic cooling to desublimate gas into the barrel of a pipe gun to form a solid pellet. High-pressure gas or a mechanical punch is used to dislodge the pellet and accelerate it into a bent tube to intentionally fracture it. Pellets made of a mixture of deuterium and neon are likely candidates for thermal mitigation. The survivability of these pellets throughout their flight path, before striking the shatter tube, is essential for reliable SPI operation. Experiments were conducted to determine intact speed limits for various mixtures. This paper outlines the details of brittle fracture theory and compares a theory-based model to experimental results from various mixtures of deuterium and neon pellets.