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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.
G. T. Chapman, W. R. Burrus
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 34 | Number 2 | November 1968 | Pages 169-180
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE68-A19542
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Measurements of the pulse-height distribution of gamma rays observed as a function of position and angle in the water shield of the Bulk Shielding Reactor II, a water-moderated and water-cooled pool-type reactor with stainless steel clad fuel plates, have been transformed to gamma-ray energy flux spectra by a computer program which removed the effects of the spectrometer's nonunique pulse-height response and accounted for the energy variation of the spectrometer's efficiency. The results show that the photons above 5 MeV originate primarily from thermal-neutron capture in the components of the stainless steel. Gamma rays due to the 57Fe component were identified as those known to be at 5.91, 6.02, and 7.6 MeV. Others were due to 58Fe at 10.16 MeV, to 54Cr at 8.88 and 9.72 MeV, and to 59Ni at 8.53 and 8.99 MeV. Below 5 MeV the spectra consist of a strong contribution at 2.2 MeV from thermal-neutron capture in the hydrogen of the pool water, combined with a continuum presumably composed of prompt and delayed gamma rays following fission, lower energy components in the capture spectra from the stainless steel, scattering in the reactor or shield, and other lesser sources.