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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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Latest News
El Salvador: Looking to nuclear
In 2022, El Salvador’s leadership decided to expand its modest, mostly hydro- and geothermal-based electricity system, which is supported by expensive imported natural gas and diesel generation. They chose to use advanced nuclear reactors, preferably fueled by thorium-based fuels, to power their civilian efforts. The choice of thorium was made to inform the world that the reactor program was for civilian purposes only, and so they chose a fuel that was plentiful, easy to source and work with, and not a proliferation risk.
Jeffrey Doody, Robert Granetz, Bruce Lipschultz, Han Zhang, Peter Titus, Rui Vieira
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 2 | August 2013 | Pages 320-324
Divertor and High-Heat-Flux Components | Proceedings of the Twentieth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE-2012) (Part 1), Nashville, Tennessee, August 27-31, 2012 | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A18097
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new outer divertor is being designed for installation on Alcator C-Mod. This divertor will be toroidally continuous such that the currents during a disruption will be driven in the toroidal direction and not cross Alcator's large toroidal field and it eliminates leading edges. However, currents will still cross the poloidal fields, and so it is important to properly predict the poloidal fields in the area of the divertor so that we can properly predict the loads on the divertor during a disruption. To that end, an ANSYS model has been built which can predict the fields and field transients in C-Mod given two inputs, the currents for the toroidal and poloidal field coils which come from measured data taken during a discharge, and the current in the plasma, which comes from another model that solves Maxwell's equations to reconstruct the plasma as 24 current carrying filaments. The advantage of using this method to predict fields is that it provides the ability to create a model based on actual measured data and to model whichever type of disruption, whether a midplane disruption or a vertical displacement event, is deemed necessary for the design. The ANSYS model then is able to predict the fields, including the shielding effects of the structures in the vessel, and the currents induced in the vessel and these structures. These results can then be mapped to a sub-model of the divertor to predict loading and stress during the disruption.