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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.
D. C. Donovan, D. R. Boris, G. L. Kulcinski, J. F. Santarius
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 507-511
Experimental Facilities and Nonelectric Applications | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-22
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) Fusion Research Group has been performing experiments on an IEC device known as HOMER. This device is a 65cm high, 91cm diameter cylindrical aluminum vacuum chamber that contains two concentric spherical wire grids, the outer grid acting as the anode and the inner grid as the cathode. The potential difference between the anode and cathode drives ions towards the center of the grids. Using this device, steady-state D-D fusion reactions are created in order to produce 2.45 MeV neutrons. With the goal of achieving maximum neutron production rates, the following parameters have been varied: cathode voltage, ion current, operating pressure, and the separation distance between the anode and cathode. The studies on pressure, voltage, and current have led to the discovery of trends that allow for the extrapolation of neutron rates at various conditions. The cathode/anode separation studies have offered valuable insight into how the distance between the electrodes effects the concentration of deuterium molecular ions and the ion energy spectra, and has led to the implementation of a configuration that better maximizes neutron production rates.