Author
Priyanca Ford
Recent research
- Materials & EnergyOpen access
Isotope Co-Production and 14\,MeV Materials Qualification at a Spherical-Tokamak Breeder
Isotope co-production and 14 MeV materials qualification at the spherical-tokamak breeder. The same fusion-spectrum source provides a high-flux materials-qualification volume many times the reference dedicated facility, and breeds shortage-prone medical isotopes such as molybdenu...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
Nonlinear gyrokinetics of the compact spherical-tokamak breeder at the frozen negative-triangularity design point. Nonlinear CGYRO with kinetic electrons shows negative triangularity cutting ion-scale (ITG+TEM) transport by 40-45 percent versus a positive-triangularity twin, with...
- Engineering & TechnologyOpen access
Thermal-Barrier Decoupling - The Cornerstone Plug Mechanism
The plug's electrostatic potential is the burner's binding gate. A thermal barrier — a local density/potential depression sustained by ECH hot electrons and sloshing ions — decouples the plug potential from the central-cell electrons: the ion-confining-potential requirement drops...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
A Control-Barrier-Certified Zero-Escape Safety Clamp for a Compact Spherical-Tokamak Breeder
A deterministic, control-barrier-certified safety clamp providing a provable zero-escape guarantee for the compact spherical-tokamak breeder operating envelope. A robust, disturbance-tightened control-barrier-function filter with a closed-form separable solution wraps an arbitrar...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
A reduced-order assessment of disruptions, runaway electrons, and electromagnetic loads for the compact spherical-tokamak breeder, on a NIMROD-verified equilibrium. Current-quench time 7-19 ms; a SEVERE runaway-electron avalanche (E/E_c about 1128, a beam of order 70 percent of p...
- Materials & EnergyOpen access
The Tritium Fuel Cycle and Breeding Ladder of a Compact Spherical-Tokamak Breeder
The tritium fuel cycle and breeding ladder of a compact spherical-tokamak breeder, developed as an honest mass balance. The per-unit burn rate follows from the fusion power; the net surplus is a confirmed ladder to the advanced-blanket ceiling. A single advanced unit exports trit...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
Fast-Ion and Alpha-Particle Confinement in a Compact Spherical-Tokamak Breeder
Fast-alpha and fusion-product confinement in the deuterium-helium-3 tandem-mirror burner. The mirror-trapped charged products and their loss-cone dynamics set the ash accumulation and the axial power that the direct-energy-conversion and alpha-channeling systems must handle. Repo...
- Society & EconomicsOpen access
Licensing a Compact Fusion Platform Under the Byproduct-Material Framework
Licensing a compact fusion platform under the United States byproduct-material framework (10 CFR Part 30), confirmed for fusion by the 2023 NRC determination and the ADVANCE Act. The materials-oriented, Agreement-State-administrable, graded path suits a machine whose only signifi...
- AI & ComputingOpen access
The Tensor-Network Kinetic Solver - Classical, Deployable Today
The kinetic distribution function is highly compressible in a low-rank tensor-network representation, and that yields a practical classical solver, not a storage trick. On a 1D1V BGK test, a matrix-product-state truncation reaches relative-L² error 2×10−⁴ at rank 8 using ~0.19× t...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
The drift-cyclotron loss-cone (DCLC) microstability of a deuterium-helium-3 tandem-mirror plug. A flute-mode electrostatic dispersion solver, cross-checked electromagnetically, maps the exact marginal-stability boundary. The design's warm-ion fill sits exactly on the stabilizatio...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
A reduced-order red-team of the binding gates of a compact spherical-tokamak breeder and a deuterium-helium-3 tandem-mirror burner. For each honest negative, alternatives are brainstormed, bounded, ranked, and only the promising ones promoted to high-fidelity validation. The curr...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
The integrated Kronos platform as one architecture: a compact negative-triangularity spherical-tokamak breeder supplying tritium, helium-3, neutrons, and isotopes, and a deuterium-helium-3 burner supplying power at a low neutron fraction, sharing a REBCO magnet basis and a single...
- Physics & SpaceOpen access
Nonlinear gyrokinetics of the compact spherical-tokamak breeder at the frozen negative-triangularity design point. Nonlinear CGYRO with kinetic electrons shows negative triangularity cutting ion-scale (ITG+TEM) transport by 40-45 percent versus a positive-triangularity twin, with...