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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.
Richard Babut, Olivier Bouland, Eric Fort
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 151 | Number 2 | October 2005 | Pages 135-156
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE05-A2536
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Evaluated data are adjusted on experimental measurements using nuclear reaction models. Among these data, those concerning alpha-particle interactions on light nuclei are not well known, although crucial for neutron emission problems via (,n) processes in nuclear fuels (oxide, carbide, nitride). Examples of applications are reprocessing, packaging and storage of radioactive waste, and intrinsic neutron source term evaluation in critical and subcritical reactors (accelerator-driven systems). The goal is the modeling of (,n) reactions on oxygen isotopes to extract the resonance parameters. The SAMMY code, which relies on the Reich-Moore approximation of the R-matrix theory, is used. In the most recent version, the SAMMY code allows the study of the in- and outgoing charged-particle channels. An important validation of this new feature has been made. In addition, a manifest lack of experimental data for this type of reaction has been underlined. Finally, the impact of the new pointwise description of the (,n) reaction cross section on the energy distribution calculation of the intrinsic neutron source of an irradiated mixed-oxide fuel pin is shown and compared to the standard calculation, which uses average cross sections.