Sublimation Pressures of Refractory Fluorides

Vapor species identification, absolute vapor pressures and heats of sublimation of refractory metal fluoride

Design of the fill/transfer station cryostat for the OMEGA cryogenic target system

General Atomics is designing, testing and fabricating a system for supplying cryogenic targets for the University of Rochester`s OMEGA laser system. A prototype system has demonstrated the filling of 1 mm diameter, 3 {micro}m wall plastic spheres to 111 MPa (1,100 atm) with deuterium and then cooling to 18 K to condense the fuel. The production design must be capable of routinely filling and cooling targets with a 50/50 mix of deuterium and tritium and transferring them to a device which places the targets into the focus of 60 laser beams. This paper discusses the design and analysis of the production Fill/Transfer Station cryostat. The cryostat has two major components, a fixed base and a removable dome. The joint between the base and the dome is similar to a bayonet fitting and is sealed by a room temperature elastomeric o-ring. Since the cryostat must be housed in a glovebox, its design is driven strongly by maintenance requirements. To reach the equipment inside the cryostat, the dome is simply unbolted and lifted. The inside of the cryostat is maintained at 16 K by a closed loop helium flow system. Gaseous helium at about 1.4 MPa (200 psi) flows through tubes which are brazed to the inner walls. Cooling is provided by several cryocoolers which are located external to the cryostat. Liquid nitrogen is used as a heat intercept and to precool the helium gas

Direct energy conversion in fission reactors: A U.S. NERI project

In principle, the energy released by a fission can be converted directly into electricity by using the charged fission fragments. The first theoretical treatment of direct energy conversion (DEC) appeared in the literature in 1957. Experiments were conducted over the next ten years, which identified a number of problem areas. Research declined by the late 1960's due to technical challenges that limited performance. Under the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative the authors are determining if these technical challenges can be overcome with todays technology. The authors present the basic principles of DEC reactors, review previous research, discuss problem areas in detail, and identify technological developments of the last 30 years that can overcome these obstacles. As an example, the fission electric cell must be insulated to avoid electrons crossing the cell. This insulation could be provided by a magnetic field as attempted in the early experiments. However, from work on magnetically insulated ion diodes they know how to significantly improve the field geometry. Finally, a prognosis for future development of DEC reactors will be presented

High Efficiency Generation of Hydrogen Fuels Using Nuclear Power: Final Report

OAK B202 HIGH EFFICIENCY GENERATION OF HYDROGEN FUELS USING NUCLEAR POWER. Combustion of fossil fuels, used to power transportation, generate electricity, heat homes and fuel industry provides 86% of the world's energy. Drawbacks to fossil fuel utilization include limited supply, pollution, and carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions, thought to be responsible for global warming, are now the subject of international treaties. Together, these drawbacks argue for the replacement of fossil fuels with a less-polluting potentially renewable primary energy such as nuclear energy. Conventional nuclear plants readily generate electric power but fossil fuels are firmly entrenched in the transportation sector. Hydrogen is an environmentally attractive transportation fuel that has the potential to displace fossil fuels. Hydrogen will be particularly advantageous when coupled with fuel cells. Fuel cells have higher efficiency than conventional battery/internal combustion engine combinations and do not produce nitrogen oxides during low-temperature operation. Contemporary hydrogen production is primarily based on fossil fuels and most specifically on natural gas. When hydrogen is produced using energy derived from fossil fuels, there is little or no environmental advantage. There is currently no large scale, cost-effective, environmentally attractive hydrogen production process available for commercialization, nor has such a process been identified. The objective of this work is to find an economically feasible process for the production of hydrogen, by nuclear means, using an advanced high-temperature nuclear reactor as the primary energy source. Hydrogen production by thermochemical water-splitting (Appendix A), a chemical process that accomplishes the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen using only heat or, in the case of a hybrid thermochemical process, by a combination of heat and electrolysis, could meet these goals. Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels has trace contaminants (primarily carbon monoxide) that are detrimental to precious metal catalyzed fuel cells, as is now recognized by many of the world's largest automobile companies. Thermochemical hydrogen will not contain carbon monoxide as an impurity at any level. Electrolysis, the alternative process for producing hydrogen using nuclear energy, suffers from thermodynamic inefficiencies in both the production of electricity and in electrolytic parts of the process. The efficiency of electrolysis (electricity to hydrogen) is currently about 80%. Electric power generation efficiency would have to exceed 65% (thermal to electrical) for the combined efficiency to exceed the 52% (thermal to hydrogen) calculated for one thermochemical cycle. Thermochemical water-splitting cycles have been studied, at various levels of effort, for the past 35 years. They were extensively studied in the late 70s and early 80s but have received little attention in the past 10 years, particularly in the U.S. While there is no question about the technical feasibility and the potential for high efficiency, cycles with proven low cost and high efficiency have yet to be developed commercially. Over 100 cycles have been proposed, but substantial research has been executed on only a few. This report describes work accomplished during a three-year project whose objective is to ''define an economically feasible concept for production of hydrogen, by nuclear means, using an advanced high temperature nuclear reactor as the energy source.'' The emphasis of the first phase was to evaluate thermochemical processes which offer the potential for efficient, cost-effective, large-scale production of hydrogen from water in which the primary energy input is high temperature heat from an advanced nuclear reactor and to select one (or, at most three) for further detailed consideration. During Phase 1, an exhaustive literature search was performed to locate all cycles previously proposed. The cycles located were screened using objective criteria to determine which could benefit, in terms of efficiency and cost, from the high-temperature capabilities of advanced nuclear reactors. The more promising cycles were then analyzed in depth as to their adaptability to advanced high-temperature nuclear reactors. As a result, the Sulfur-Iodine (S-I) cycle was selected for integration into the advanced nuclear reactor system. In Phases 2 and 3, alternative flowsheets were developed and compared. This effort entailed a considerable effort into developing the solution thermodynamics pertinent to the S-I cycle

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

ArtSight: An Artistic Data Exploration Engine

This technical demo presents ArtSight, a comprehensive query-by-color explorative interface built on top of the large scale artistic dataset OmniArt. Color is of paramount importance in the artistic realm and querying such large data collections by colors that appear in their palette allows for intuitive exploration. This demo allows users to browse the 3 million artwork items in the OmniArt collection by color, and hierarchically filter each result-set by multiple attributes existing in the collection itself. Colors are extracted from the digital photographic reproductions in an unsupervised fashion in palettes of twelve and matched with their meta-data seamlessly to exploit both modalities in our filtering module. The user interaction quality is moderated by a responsive framework with touch capability and an unfoldable interactive 3D sphere visualization offering two exploration options - CompactExplore or GridExplore

Thermochemical water-splitting cycle, bench-scale investigations and process engineering. Annual report, October 1, 1978-September 30, 1979

A program to investigate thermochemical water splitting has been under way at General Atomic Company (GA) since October 1972. This document is an annual progress report of Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored process development work on the GA sulfur-iodine thermochemical water splitting cycle. The work consisted of laboratory bench-scale investigations, demonstration of the process in a closed-loop cycle demonstrator, and process engineering design studies. A bench-scale system, consisting of three subunits, has been designed to study the cycle under continuous flow conditions. The designs of subunit I, which models the main solution reaction and product separation, and subunit II, which models the concentration and decomposition of sulfuric acid, were presented in an earlier annual report. The design of subunit III, which models the purification and decomposition of hydrogen iodide, is given in this report. Progress on the installation and operation of subunits I and II is described. A closed-loop cycle demonstrator was installed and operated based on a DOE request. Operation of the GA sulfur-iodine cycle was demonstrated in this system under recycle conditions. The process engineering addresses the flowsheet design of a large-scale production process consisting of four chemical sections (I through IV) and one helium heat supply section (V). The completed designs for sections I through V are presented. The thermal efficiency of the process calculated from the present flowsheet is 47%