• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3126-3132
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• 2023

To meet the increasing heating needs of the China Fusion Experimental Tokamak Reactor (CFETR), the output power in each Lower Hybrid Current Drive (LHCD) transmission line should be increased from 250 kW to 500 kW. Therefore, a new high-power water load must be developed for the 4.6 GHz 500 kW LHCD system. This paper aims to report the most recent research progress of the water load: aluminum nitride (AlN) ceramic is used as the media material to isolate the water and vacuum, and the radio frequency (RF) simulation results show that the return loss of the water load is less than -25dB at 4.6 GHz over a wide temperature range. Under 500 kW continuous wave (CW) operation, the maximum temperatures of the ceramic and water are separately 67 ℃ and 62 ℃, resulting in thermal deformation of the ceramic of approximately 0.003 mm. Moreover, the AlN water load was tested on the 4.6 GHz 250 kW high-power test bench and found to work well with low reflected power.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.9
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• pp.3485-3492
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• 2023

One of the major topic of tokamak research is the determination of the magnetic profile due to magnetic coil fields and plasma current by mean of data from magnetic probes. The most practical approach is to use the current filament method, which models the plasma column with multiple current carrying filaments and the total current of these filaments is equal to the plasma current. Determining the plasma boundary in Alvand-U tokamak is the main purpose of this paper. In order to determine the magnetic field profile and plasma boundary, information concerning the magnetic coils, their position, and current is required in the computing code. Then, the plasma shape is determined and finally the plasma boundary is extracted by the code. In the conducted research, we discuss how to determine the plasma boundary and the performance of the computing code for extraction of the plasma boundary. The developed algorithm shows to be effective by running it in the regular pc machine with characteristics of Intel (R) core (TM) i3-10100 CPU @3.60 GHz and 8.00 GB of RAM. Finally, we present results of a test run for computing code using a typical experimental pulse.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4209-4214
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• 2022

Precise modelling of the interaction of ions with materials is important for many applications including material characterization, ion implantation in devices, thermonuclear fusion, hadron therapy, secondary particle production (e.g. neutron), etc. In this study, a new approach using the Geant4 toolkit in combination with the Bayesian regularization (BR) learning algorithm of the feed-forward neural network (FFNN) is developed to estimate the range of ions in materials accurately and quickly. The different incident ions at different energies are interacted with the target materials. The Geant4 is utilized to model the interactions and to calculate the range of the ions. Afterward, the appropriate architecture of the FFNN-BR with the relevant input features is utilized to learn the modelled ranges and to estimate the new ranges for the new cases. The notable achievements of the proposed approach are: 1- The range of ions in different materials is given as quickly as possible and the time required for estimating the ranges can be neglected (i.e. less than 0.01 s by a typical personal computer). 2- The proposed approach can generalize its ability for estimating the new untrained cases. 3- There is no need for a pre-made lookup table for the estimation of the range values.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.927-938
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• 2023

The blanket plays an important role in fusion reactor and stands extremely high thermal and electromagnetic loads during operation situation and plasma disruption event, brings the need for precise thermal and electromagnetic analysis. Since the thermal field and EM field interact with each other nonlinearly, we develop a method of electromagnetic-thermal two-way coupling by using finite element software COMSOL. The coupling analyses of blanket under steady state and MD event are implemented and the results are analyzed. For steady state, the influences of coupling effects are relatively small but still recommended to be considered for a high precision analysis. The influence of thermal field on EM field can't be ignored under MD events. The variation of force density could cause a significant change in stress in certain parts of blanket. The influence of Joule heat during MD event is negligible, yet the potential temperature rise caused by induced current after MD event still needs to be researched.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.981-988
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• 2023

A seismic event caused an accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, which further resulted in simultaneous accidents at several units. Consequently, this incident has aroused great interest in the safety of nuclear power plants worldwide. A reasonable safety evaluation of such an external event should appropriately consider the correlation between SSCs (structures, systems, and components) and the probability of failure. However, a probabilistic safety assessment in current nuclear industries is performed conservatively, assuming that the failure correlation between SSCs is independent or completely dependent. This is an extreme assumption; a reasonable risk can be calculated, or risk-based decision-making can be conducted only when the appropriate failure correlation between SSCs is considered. Thus, this study analyzed the effect of the failure correlation of SSCs on the safety of the system to realize rational safety assessment and decision-making. Consequently, the impact on the system differs according to the size of the failure probability of the SSCs and the AND and OR conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.10
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• pp.3844-3853
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• 2023

Although radiation and chemotherapy methods for cancer therapy have advanced significantly, surgical resection is still recommended for most cancers. Therefore, intraoperative imaging studies have emerged as a surgical tool for identifying tumor margins. Intraoperative imaging has been examined using conventional imaging devices, such as optical near-infrared probes, gamma probes, and ultrasound devices. However, each modality has its limitations, such as depth penetration and spatial resolution. To overcome these limitations, hybrid imaging modalities and tracer studies are being developed. In a previous study, a multi-modal laparoscope with silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM)-based gamma detection acquired a 1 s interval gamma image. However, improvements in the near-infrared fluorophore (NIRF) signal intensity and gamma image central defects are needed to further evaluate the usefulness of multi-modal systems. In this study, an attempt was made to change the NIRF image acquisition method and the SiPM-based gamma detector to improve the source detection ability and reduce the image acquisition time. The performance of the multi-modal system using a complementary metal oxide semiconductor and modified SiPM gamma detector was evaluated in a phantom test. In future studies, a multi-modal system will be further optimized for pilot preclinical studies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.11
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• pp.4191-4203
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• 2023

Robotics applications are greatly needed in hazardous locations, e.g., fusion and fission reactors, where robots must perform delicate and complex tasks under ionizing radiation conditions. The drawback is that some robotic parts, such as active electronics, are susceptible to radiation. It can lead to unexpected failures and early termination of the robotic operation. This paper analyses the ionizing radiation effect from 0.09 to 1.5 Gy/s in robotic components (microcontrollers, servo motors and temperature sensors). The first experiment compares the performance of various microcontroller types and their actuators and sensors, where different mitigation strategies are applied, such as using Radiation-Hardened (Rad-Hard) microcontrollers or shielding. The second and third experiments analyze the performance of a 3-Degrees of Freedom (DoF) robotic arm, evaluating its components' responses and trajectory. This study enhances our understanding and expands our knowledge regarding radiation's impact on robotic arms and components, which is useful for defining the best strategies for extending the robots' operational lifespan, especially when performing maintenance or inspection tasks in radiation environments.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.546-551
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• 2024

As an effective methods of plasma heating, neutral beam injection (NBI) systems based on negative hydrogen ion sources will be utilized in future magnetic-confinement nuclear fusion experiments. Because of the collisions between the fast negative ions and the neutral background gas, the positive ions are inevitable created in the acceleration region in the negative NBI system. These positive ions are accelerated back into the ion source and become high energy backstreaming ions. In order to explore the characters of backstreaming ions, the track and power deposition of backstreaming H⁺ beam is estimated using the experimental and simulation methods at NNBI test facility. Results show that the flux of backstreaming positive ions is 1.93 % of that of negative ion extraction from ion source, and the magnet filed in the beam source has an effect on the backstreaming positive ions propagation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1145-1152
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• 2024

To realize an initial objective of the negative ion-based neutral beam injection (N-NBI) at the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology (CRAFT) test facility, which targets an H⁰ beam power of 2 MW at an energy of 200-400 keV and a pulse duration of 100 s, it is crucial to study the cesium dynamics of the negative ion source. Here a numerical simulation program CSFC3D is developed and applied to simulate the distribution and time dynamics of cesium during short pulses. The calculations show that most of the cesium on the plasma grid (PG) area originates from the release of cesium that is accumulated within the ion source in the plasma phase. Increasing the wall temperature reduces the loss of cesium on the wall of the ion source. Furthermore, the thickness of the cesium monolayer is directly influenced by the PG temperature. Both simulated and experimental results demonstrate that maintaining the PG temperature between 180 ℃ and 200 ℃ is essential for enhancing the performance of the ion source and optimizing the cesium behavior.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4102-4110
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• 2022

Aiming at high-power and long-pulse operation up to 1000 s, some improvements have been made for both 2.45 GHz and 4.6 GHz lower hybrid (LH) systems during the recent 5 years. At first, the guard limiters of the LH antennas with graphite tiles were upgraded to tungsten, the most promising material for plasma facing components in nuclear fusion devices. These new guard limiters can operate at a peak power density of 12.9 MW/m². Strong hot spots were usually observed on the old graphite limiters when 4.6 GHz system operated with power >2.0 MW [B. N. Wan et al., Nucl. Fusion 57 (2017) 102019], leading to a reduction of the maximum power capability. With the new limiters, 4.6 GHz LH system, the main current drive (CD) and electron heating tool for EAST, can be operated with power >2.5 MW routinely. Long-pulse operation up to 100 s with 4.6 GHz LH power of 2.4 MW was achieved in 2021 and the maximal temperature on the guard limiters measured by an infrared (IR) camera was about 540 ℃, much below the permissible value of tungsten material (~1200 ℃). A discharge with a duration of 1056 s was achieved and the 4.6 GHz LH energy injected into the plasma was up to 1.05 GJ. Secondly, the fully-active-multijunction (FAM) launcher of 2.45 GHz system was upgraded to a passive-active-multijunction (PAM), for which the density of optimum coupling was relatively low (below the cut-off value). Good coupling with reflection coefficient ~3% has been achieved with plasma-antenna distance up to 11 cm for the new PAM. Finally, in order to eliminate the effect of ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) wave on 4.6 GHz LH wave coupling, the location of the ICRF launcher was changed to a port that is located 157.5° toroidally from the 4.6 GHz LH system and is not magnetically connected.