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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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New coolants, new fuels: A new generation of university reactors
Here’s an easy way to make aging U.S. power reactors look relatively youthful: Compare them (average age: 43) with the nation’s university research reactors. The 25 operating today have been licensed for an average of about 58 years.
T. W. Petrie, G. H. Miley
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 64 | Number 1 | September 1977 | Pages 151-162
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27086
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Phase-space grouping techniques have been applied to two distinct problems in fusion product physics: (a) slowing down drift motion of highly energetic alpha particles in a symmetric toroidal field, and (b) first wall loading by 3.52-MeV alpha particles resulting from magnetic ripple. In the former, a weighted energy-loss approximation method permits the evolving orbits to be determined for any representative phase-space group. This enables rapid computation of several important suprathermal effects in a tokamak plasma. For example, code SYMALF, which embodies this idea, is applied to plasma heating and alpha-particle thermalization source problems. In the ripple field case, a probabilistic density function is employed to determine drift losses associated with ripple-trapped, 3.52-MeV alpha particles. When used to determine 3.52-MeV alpha-particle wall loadings, code RIPALF, which is based on this probability function, predicts the position of local “hot spots” along the first wall.