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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
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.
12th Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control and Human-Machine Interface Technologies (NPIC&HMIT 2021)
Technical Session
Thursday, June 17, 2021|12:15–2:00PM EDT
Session Chair:
Jacob Farber (INL)
Alternate Chair:
Richard Wood (University of Tennessee-Knoxville)
Session Organizer:
Jamie B. Coble (University of Tennessee-Knoxville)
Staff Producer:
Janet Davis (ANS)
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Development of H∞ Controllers for Nuclear Thermal Rocket Engines
Dan C. Floyd (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville), David M. Sikorski (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville), Richard T. Wood (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville), Seddik M. Djouadi (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville)
Paper
A Reduced Order Nuclear Thermal Rocket Engine Model as a Research Development Platform
David M. Sikorski (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville), Richard T. Wood (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville)
Development of a Non-Nuclear Test Bed for Advanced Control Algorithms
Hayden Sutton (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville), Richard Wood (Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville), Bart Murphy (ORNL), N. Dianne Bull Ezell (ORNL)
Instrumentation for Microreactor Non-Nuclear Testbed Facilities
Troy Unruh (INL), Joshua Daw (INL), Kelly McCary (INL), Richard Skifton (INL)
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