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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.
Chae Y. Yang, Nam Z. Cho
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 101 | Number 3 | March 1989 | Pages 243-258
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE89-A23612
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A nonlinear reactor model is developed taking into account several feedback effects, such as moderator and fuel temperatures, xenon absorption, and soluble boron concentration, through energy balance relations in the core. The resulting equation belongs to a class of nonlinear boundary value problems, and it is shown through bifurcation theory that there may exist multiple steady-state solutions for a range of parameters that correspond to various design and operating conditions. Solutions are obtained numerically for ranges of the parameters by the arc-length continuation method in combination with Newton’s method. Stability analysis is also applied to each solution to investigate whether the solution is stable or not. When the stable and unstable regions of the steady-state solutions are plotted for a wide range of the parameters, we can choose a range of the reactor design and operating conditions such that the reactor does not encounter unstable situations.