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Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
Kazuyuki Noborio, Yasushi Yamamoto, Satoshi Konishi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 1280-1284
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Nonelectric Applications | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A865
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Using a 1-D particle code, we have analyzed characteristics of an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion device with external ion source which is added to enable low pressure operation. When the pressure becomes low, though neutron yield decreases, the decreasing amount is less than estimated from the decrease in background (target) gas density and it is confirmed that ions are accelerated efficiently with little energy loss through charge-exchange collision with background gas at low pressure. And when the pressure is lower than 0.05Pa, almost all injected ions reach to the cathode and it is expected that applying high geometrical transparency enhances accumulation of ion and enlarges neutron yield.