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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.
Wenjun Yang, Changlin Lan, Guoqiang Li, Xueyu Gong, Xiang Gao
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 6 | August 2024 | Pages 724-730
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2234224
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As a significant input for neutronics analysis of tokamak devices, the plasma neutron source is a bridge connecting fusion plasma physics and engineering design. A plasma neutron source model is established based on the EAST plasma configuration. The maximum neutron wall loading (NWL) is near the outboard midplane and is more than ~20% that of the inboard midplane. The investigations demonstrate that special care should be taken for radiation shielding and protection of the key components located on the outboard midplane and on the inboard midplane. The effect of the tritium accumulation on neutronics analysis should be carefully considered for EAST tokamak D-D plasma operations.
The effect of density peaking (DP) on the neutronics analysis is also investigated. It is evident that the peak NWLs are all near the outboard midplane and that the poloidal distributions of the NWL are slightly different for these cases. With increasing DP, both the outboard and inboard peak NWLs decrease. However, the decrease in NWL is very small; NWL decreases only 11% when the neutron source peak increases about 1.5 times.