ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
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.
Yoshihiko Nagamine, Hideki Nakashima
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 35 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 62-70
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A78
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A magnetic thrust chamber concept in a laser fusion rocket is suitable for controlling the plasma flow, and it has an advantage in that thermalization with wall structures in a thrust chamber can be avoided. Rayleigh-Taylor instability would occur at the surface of expanding plasma, and it would lead to the degradation of thrust efficiency, which would result from diffusion of the plasma through an ambient magnetic field. A three-dimensional hybrid particle-in-cell code has been developed to analyze the plasma instability in the magnetic thrust chamber and to estimate the thrust efficiency. It is found that the instability would not have serious effects on the thrust efficiency; thrust efficiency in terms of momentum obtained here amounts to 65%. The effects of varying parameters on the thrust efficiency are also studied. The thrust efficiency seemed to reach its maximum value around c = 50 deg, where c is an angle subtended from the initial plasma position at the z axis to the solenoidal coil and its dependence on magnetic field energy produced by the coil is found to be weak for the cases studied here.