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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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
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.
Workshop
Thursday, April 8, 2021|4:00–6:00PM EDT
Session Chair:
Jason Hou
Alternate Chair:
Alexander W. Bataller
Session Organizer:
Edward Chen (NC State Univ.)
Track Organizer:
Session Producers:
Yuqiao Joy Fan (NCSU)
Our increasing need for safe, abundant, reliable, and carbon-free energy sources is stimulating renewed interest for employing nuclear energy to power our world. New materials and technologies that can address sustainability, cost, and waste issues of current water-based reactors is critical for realizing a future powered by the atom. Among these concepts is the utilization of molten salts as both the reactor coolant and as a fuel solvent, namely, the molten salt reactor (MSR). This workshop will provide an overview of the MSR concept and current technological challenges facing its development and deployment. On the experimental side, we will compare classical approaches to molten salt characterization with modern-day developments, with an emphasis on laser-based diagnostics. We will discuss the challenges associated with the modeling and simulation (M&S) capabilities, introduce the important physics spaces relevant to various MSR designs, and discuss the tight coupling of single physics modules to enable multi-physics simulation of the core and system.
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