Search results for "nuclear energy"
showing 10 items of 614 documents
Plasma heating and particle acceleration in collisionless shocks through astrophysical observations
2023
Supernova remnants (SNRs), the products of stellar explosions, are powerful astrophysical laboratories, which allow us to study the physics of collisionless shocks, thanks to their bright electromagnetic emission. Blast wave shocks generated by supernovae (SNe) provide us with an observational window to study extreme conditions, characterized by high Mach (and Alfvenic Mach) numbers, together with powerful nonthermal processes. In collisionless shocks, temperature equilibration between different species may not be reached at the shock front. In this framework, different particle species might be heated at different temperatures (depending on their mass) in the post-shock medium of SNRs. SNR…
Approaching the precursor nuclei of the third r-process peak with RIBs
2013
The rapid neutron nucleosynthesis process involves an enormous amount of very exotic neutron-rich nuclei, which represent a theoretical and experimental challenge. Two of the main decay properties that affect the final abundance distribution the most are half-lives and neutron branching ratios. Using fragmentation of a primary $^{238}$U beam at GSI we were able to measure such properties for several neutron-rich nuclei from $^{208}$Hg to $^{218}$Pb. This contribution provides a short update on the status of the data analysis of this experiment, together with a compilation of the latest results published in this mass region, both experimental and theoretical. The impact of the uncertainties …
Citizen energy lost in sustainability transitions: Knowledge co-production in a complex governance context
2023
Funding Information: In the European Union, the Clean Energy Package with revised directives has created a framework for the member states to provide stronger legislative support for citizen engagement in community-level energy actions [10,11]. These regulatory reforms are geared towards transforming the operational conditions for active, efficient and inclusive citizen-led energy communities to emerge in diverse contexts [12–14]. More specifically, the market access rules and the information supporting the distributed energy producers have been improved [10]. The legitimacy of the EU policies on renewable energy, energy efficiency and market reforms is considered to be improved by enabling…
Heavy-Ion Radiation Impact on a 4 Mb FRAM Under Different Test Modes and Conditions
2016
International audience; The impact of heavy-ions on commercial Ferroelectric Memories (FRAMs) is analyzed. The influence of dynamic and static test modes as well as several stimuli on the error rate of this memory is investigated. Static test results show that the memory is prone to temporary effects occurring in the peripheral circuitry, with a possible effect due to fluence. Dynamic tests results show a high sensitivity of this memory to switching activity of this peripheral circuitry.
Features of the in-situ experiments on studying of tritium release from lithium ceramic Li2TiO3 using vacuum extraction method
2021
Abstract The paper presents the results of reactor experiments with lithium ceramic Li2TiO3 performed at the WWR-K research reactor (Almaty, Kazakhstan). A qualitative analysis of the experimental results is presented. The following general results are obtained from the experiments performed by the vacuum extraction method: • Almost no tritium is released in the form of tritium water vapor, and the processes associated with tritium interaction with water vapor can be excluded from the consideration; • a significant amount of tritium is released as T2 molecule; • in long-term irradiation, a significant growth of tritium release in the form of T2 molecule with the time of irradiation is obser…
Systems engineering activities supporting the heating & current drive and fuelling lines systems integration in the European DEMO breeding blanket
2019
This paper describes the contribution given by the application of the systems engineering approach to the European DEMO Breeding Blanket (BB) integration studies, focussing on the integration of Heating & Current Drive (H&CD) and Fuelling Lines (FL) systems. In particular, attention has been paid to the BB-H&CD and BB-FL interfaces identification, definition and capture of the proper interface requirements necessary to drive the integration process and, as a consequence, supply a feedback for the reciprocal design of the interconnected systems. The defined interfaces are synthetically described in the paper and the results of the interface requirements capture process are shown,…
Interaction of a liquid gallium jet with the tokamak ISTTOK edge plasma
2008
Abstract The interaction of a liquid gallium jet with plasma has been investigated in the tokamak ISTTOK. This paper presents a description of the conceived experimental setup, a detailed characterization of the produced jets and the first experimental results related to the gallium–plasma interaction. A stable jet has been obtained, which was not noticeably affected by magnetic field transients. ISTTOK has been successfully operated with the gallium jet without degradation of the discharge or a significant plasma contamination by liquid metal. This observation is supported by spectroscopic measurements showing that gallium radiation is limited to the region around the jet. Furthermore, the…
Spectrometric analysis of inner divertor materials of JET carbon and ITER-like walls
2019
Abstract One of main reasons of the Joint European torus (JET) transformation from the carbon (JET-C) to ITER-like (JET-ILW) wall was high tritium retention of carbon. In order to compare the tritium retention, samples of analogous positions of the plasma-facing side of vertical tiles No. 3 of two campaigns: JET-C (2008–2009) and JET-ILW (2011–2012) were cut out. Temperature-programmed tritium desorption spectrometry in He + 0.1% H2 gas flow showed that JET-C sample without a tungsten coating had by a factor of >20 higher surface concentration of tritium than JET-ILW tungsten-coated sample: 4.9 × 1013 and 1.7–2.2 × 1012 T atoms/cm2 respectively. Installation of metallic plasma facing wall i…
Human and organizational factors in European nuclear safety: A fifty-year perspective on insights, implementations, and ways forward
2022
Abstract In this essay we investigate the “lessons learned” within the domain of human and organizational factors (HOF) from operating European nuclear power plants (NPPs) in a fifty-year perspective. Specifically, we consider learning processes at an industry level that aim at promoting human contributions to nuclear safety. This is done by bringing together two main perspectives: (1) a historical perspective on HOF-related institutional and research initiatives is presented by outlining the history of nuclear safety according to three major nuclear accidents, (2) an applied perspective is provided on how HOF are managed in the field. This latter perspective rests on the results of the EU …
Design and manufacturing feasibility of ITER TBM Frame and Dummy TBMs
2016
Abstract The operation and test of mock-ups of tritium breeding blankets relevant for a future commercial reactor is one of the goals of the ITER machine. To accomplish this goal, mock-ups of breeding blankets, called Test Blanket Modules (TBMs), are installed in three ITER equatorial ports. Each TBM and the associated shield form a TBM-set that is mechanically attached to a steel frame called TBM Frame. A Frame and two TBM-Sets form a TBM Port Plug (TBM PP). The ITER Organization is responsible for the design and manufacture of the TBM Frames and of the Dummy TBMs that could replace the TBM-sets in case they were not available. This paper describes the recent results of the design supporti…