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Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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February 2025
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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Technical Session|Panel|Sponsored by HFICD
Tuesday, June 18, 2024|1:00–2:45PM PDT|Jasmine H
Session Chair:
Lee Maccarone (Sandia)
Alternate Chair:
Edward L. Quinn
Session Organizer:
Jamie B. Coble
This panel will summarize an ongoing body of DOE' supported research and development efforts to provide the Nuclear Power industry with implementation and approaches to leverage advanced cybersecurity technologies for safety systems within nuclear power plants (NPPs). Digital technologies play a critical role in ensuring the reliable operation of safety systems in NPPs. Current cybersecurity regulations for operating NPPs, typically result a high reliance on hardened and secure boundaries to prevent adversary access to safety systems. The summarized research efforts detail approaches for leveraging commercial advanced cybersecurity technologies to provide sufficient inherent cybersecurity to reduce reliance on these hardened and secured boundaries. These research efforts consist of experiments that demonstrate novel approaches aimed at reducing functional (e.g., latency, reliability) and licensing impacts to safety systems through application of secure elements and other cybersecurity technologies (e.g, network monitoring, AI, ML) common in other industries. These efforts aim to support all reactor types, including domestic light water reactors, advanced reactors, small modular reactors, and microreactors. Specifically, innovation in the use of advanced cybersecurity technologies to enable several desired advances in safety systems (e.g., remote communications, monitoring, active defense), significant to advanced and small modular reactors. These reactor types will require advanced cybersecurity technologies to provide robust cryptographic mechanisms, intrusion detection and response, to defend the confidentiality and integrity necessary for remote multi-unit monitoring, reduction in sustaining costs, and enable scale-up of operations to meet domestic and international green energy and production goals, for the next generation of safety systems.
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