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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.
S. N. Cramer
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 132 | Number 2 | June 1999 | Pages 217-258
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE99-A2061
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An analytic study of the solid angle subtended at a point by objects of first and second algebraic order has been made. It is shown that the derived solid angle for all such objects is in the form of a general elliptic integral, which can be written as a linear combination of elliptic integrals of the first and third kind and elementary functions. Many common surfaces and volumes have been investigated, including the conic sections and their volumes of revolution. The principal feature of the study is the manipulation of solid-angle equations into integral forms that can be matched with those found in handbook tables. These integrals are amenable to computer special function library routine analysis requiring no direct interaction with elliptic integrals by the user. The general case requires the solution of a fourth-order equation before specific solid-angle formulations can be made, but for many common geometric objects this equation can be solved by elementary means. Methods for the testing and application of solid-angle equations with Monte Carlo rejection and estimation techniques are presented. Approximate and degenerate forms of the equations are shown, and methods for the evaluation of the solid angle of a torus are outlined.