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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.
D. D. B. van Bragt, Rizwan-uddin, T. H. J. J. van der Hagen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 134 | Number 2 | February 2000 | Pages 227-235
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE00-A2113
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Bifurcation analyses of the impact of the void distribution parameter C0 and the axial power profile on the stability of boiling water reactors (BWRs) are reported. Bifurcation characteristics of heated channels (without nuclear feedback) appear to be very sensitive to the axial power profile. A turning point bifurcation was detected for a (symmetrically) peaked axial power profile. This kind of bifurcation does not occur for a uniformly heated channel.Both supercritical and subcritical Hopf bifurcations were encountered in a (nuclear-coupled) reactor system, depending on the strength of the void reactivity feedback. Subcritical bifurcations become less likely to occur as C0 is significantly larger than unity. In BWRs with a strong nuclear feedback, the oscillation amplitude of limit cycles caused by a supercritical bifurcation is very sensitive to both C0 and the axial power profile.
