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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
In transition: Commercializing fusion power
Commercial fusion power is closer than ever. There are now around 30 U.S. fusion companies, several of which claim to be on track to connect to the grid as early as the 2030s.
Tokamak and laser inertial confinement approaches benefit from decades of research at facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ITER, with alternative concepts including stellarator, magnetic mirror, and Z-pinch confinement also making notable progress as private and government funding for fusion increases.
R. N. Hwang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 167 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 1-39
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-004
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fundamental basis regarding treatment of unresolved resonances and the construction of probability tables and the relevant issues with their application to reactor physics is critically examined. A theoretical model using integral transform techniques is developed that provides a viable alternative to the stochastic-based “ladder” method widely used to construct probability tables. A brief review of the statistical theory for treating the unresolved resonances is presented, followed by a critical examination of these methods. Then a reference method for computing various probability distributions at 0 K is derived analytically for Breit-Wigner resonances. This reference model provides the analytical insight and conceptual basis for extension to the general case of arbitrary temperature. The generalization to arbitrary temperature is accomplished using the Chebyshev expansion while maintaining the general forms of the distributions. Results of extensive benchmark calculations to verify the viability of the proposed method are presented. Finally, there is discussion of the remaining challenges in application of this new analytical approach, in particular, the issue of its extension beyond the Breit-Wigner approximation.