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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.
Douglas W. Stamps
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 128 | Number 3 | March 1998 | Pages 243-269
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE98-A1954
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The CONTAIN code was used to predict the helium concentrations, gas temperatures and pressures, and wall temperatures of four experiments performed in the NUPEC 1/4-scale model containment. These experiments investigated the thermal-hydraulic effects of helium and steam source flow rates, source elevation, and internal water sprays. Two CONTAIN flow solvers and two nodalization schemes were assessed. One NUPEC test, International Standard Problem 35, was investigated in detail, including the pretest heating phase. The thermal hydraulics of this test were dominated by internal water sprays. A modeling approach based on the assumption that the water sprays generated a large air vortex yielded the best results. Reasons for deviations between the predictions and data are suggested based on experimental uncertainties, different analysis methods, and nodalization schemes.