Research on fission induced plasmas and nuclear pumped lasers at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

The gaseous fueled reactor system was assessed. Advances in certain technology areas must be accomplished before it will be possible to produce an engineering design for a gaseous fueled power station. Corrosion problems of fluorine and uranium hexafluoride with materials must be solved, however, recent advances indicate these problems are not insurmountable. The vortex flow of buffer gas confinement obviates the most severe environment in the flow system. The feasibility of such confinement was demonstrated successfully for small scale devices and the present experimental activity is aimed at demonstration of the principle in the reactor environment at moderate power levels. Concurrently, efforts are also being made to address the problems of adapting the gas core reactor concept to be used as a power supply for nuclear pumped lasers.