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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
Ketaki Joshi, Nicholas Branam, Isaac Meyer, Ben Forget, Abdulla Alhajri, Vladimir Sobes
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 7 | July 2023 | Pages 1356-1363
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2159268
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An analytic benchmark for nuclear data uncertainty propagation in k-eigenvalue calculations is demonstrated. Flat-flux-weighted cross-section covariance matrices are available in the ENDF/B library for many isotopes. For application-specific purposes, flux-weighted multigroup cross sections with carefully constructed energy group boundaries are desired. In this paper, we use the covariance information from ENDF/B-VII.1 for the defined continuous-energy cross section and an artificially inflated variance version of the same covariance matrix for first-order and Monte Carlo propagation of uncertainty calculations. A flat-flux weighting function is used for the continuous-energy cross-section uncertainty collapse resulting in a higher propagated uncertainty on the k-eigenvalue as the group structure becomes coarser. The results of this analytic benchmark suggest that the reporting of flat-flux-weighted multigroup cross-section covariance matrices at the ENDF level may lead to inaccurate predictions of the uncertainty on the k-eigenvalue for certain applications. This work implies that not only should the resonance parameter uncertainties that go into the calculation of the continuous-energy cross sections be published, but the parameter uncertainties should also be processed into continuous-energy cross-section uncertainties that can be collapsed to application-specific multigroup cross-section covariance matrices.