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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.
Shawn A. Campbell, John Palsmeier, Sudarshan K. Loyalka
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 182 | Number 3 | March 2016 | Pages 287-296
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-40
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The nuclear source term is greatly affected by the formation and presence of aerosols in the reactor primary vessel and the containment. In simulations, the aerosol distribution is often assumed spatially homogeneous (well mixed), and there have been relatively few studies of the effects of spatial inhomogeneity on aerosol evolution in nuclear accidents. We have explored here an extension of some of our recent work on the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method to spatially inhomogeneous aerosol. In doing so, we have also departed from the traditional applications of the DSMC method where the computational domain is divided into fixed cells. We have explored here an alternative, mesh-free method by utilizing a clustering technique. This technique associates particles according to a distance parameter and is commonly used in group theory and machine learning. To benchmark this mesh-free modeling, we have verified the DSMC results against those obtained from the use of the cell balanced sectional technique for a spherical geometry where both coagulation and diffusion take place.