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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.
Byoung-Uhn Bae, Yong-Soo Kim, Goon-Cherl Park
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 154 | Number 1 | September 2006 | Pages 74-93
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE06-A2619
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As a result of experiments with the Upper Plenum Test Facility and the 1400-MW(electric) Advanced Power Reactor (APR1400), sweepout in the downcomer has been identified as playing an important role in the depletion of the core coolant inventory during a large-break loss-of-coolant accident. In order to identify the sweepout mechanism and estimate the amount of coolant discharged during sweepout, separate-effects tests were performed in a rectangular-type test apparatus 1/5 the scale of the APR1400 downcomer. The experimental results showed that the sweepout was dominantly influenced by the hydraulic behaviors of coolant and steam near the intact cold leg. A sweepout model was developed by correlating the experimental results to analytically derived nondimensional parameters. The developed model showed applicability to the prototype, as the experimental results of the counterpart tests were in good agreement, within <25.0% of the uncertainty band.