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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Latest News
NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
J. F. Santarius et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 1238-1244
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A857
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) devices, a voltage difference between concentric, nearly transparent spherical grids accelerates ions to fusion-relevant velocities. The University of Wisconsin (UW) operates two IEC devices: a cylindrical aluminum chamber and a spherical, water-cooled, stainless-steel chamber, with a power supply capable of 75 mA and 200 kV. The research program aims to generate fusion reaction products for various applications, including protons for creating radioisotopes for nuclear medicine and neutrons for detecting clandestine materials. Most IEC devices worldwide, including the UW devices, presently operate primarily in a pressure range (1-10 mtorr) that allows ions to make only a few passes through the core before they charge exchange and lose substantial energy or they collide with cathode grid wires. It is believed that fusion rates can be raised by operating at a pressure where neutral gas does not impede ion flow, and a helicon ion source has been developed to explore operation at pressures of ~0.05 mtorr. The UW IEC research group uses proton detectors, neutron detectors, residual gas analyzers, and spectroscopic diagnostics. New diagnostic techniques have also been developed, including eclipse disks to localize proton production and chordwires to estimate ion fluxes using power balance.