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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
A year in orbit: ISS deployment tests radiation detectors for future space missions
The predawn darkness on a cool Florida night was shattered by the ignition of nine Merlin engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The thrust of the engines shook the ground miles away. From a distance, the rocket appeared to slowly rise above the horizon. For the cargo onboard, the launch was anything but gentle, as the ignition of liquid oxygen generated more than 1.5 million pounds of force. After the rocket had been out of sight for several minutes, the booster dramatically returned to Earth with several sonic booms in a captivating show of engineering designed to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable.
Catalin Brill, Sebastian Brad, Claudia Bogdan, Aleksandr Grafov, Oleksandr Sirosh, Alin Lazar, Mihai Vijulie, Viorel Badescu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 3 | April-May 2024 | Pages 422-430
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2283226
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Experimental Pilot Plant for Tritium and Duterium Separation has been designed and built at the Rm. Valcea National Research and Development Institute for Cryogenics and Isotopic Technologies to separate deuterium and tritium from deuterated and tritiated water based on two combined processes: catalytic isotope exchange and cryogenic distillation. For this, additional experimental stands were developed for testing different components of the columns, such as the cold box, heat exchangers, condensers, and boilers. This paper presents the design of a new generation of fin condensers that avoids film condensation and allows the dropwise condensation mode. A small-scale cryogenic system equipped with a hydrogen liquefaction unit is presented as an alternative for condenser conductivity testing. The condenser is fixed on a hydrogen tank that is protected by a radiation shield and mounted inside a vacuum chamber. The proposed method is to continuously liquefy hydrogen using a two-stage Gifford McMahon 4K cycle cryocooler. A method for estimating the liquefaction rate was proposed and confirmed by the test results.