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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
S. Hamaguchi, T. Okamura, S. Imagawa, T. Obana, N. Yanagi, T. Mito
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 1 | July-August 2010 | Pages 581-585
Chapter 12. Superconducting Magnet System | Special Issue on Large Helical Device (LHD) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A10845
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The helical coils in the Large Helical Device (LHD) are large-scale superconducting magnets for heliotron plasma experiments. The cooling system of the coils was upgraded in 2006 to improve the cryogenic stability of the coils using subcooled helium as the coolant. In the present study, characteristics of the upgraded cooling system have been investigated and the steady-state operating method in which the subcooled helium of 50 g/s at 3.2 K is supplied stably to the coils has been developed. The supplied helium is subcooled via a heat exchanger in a saturated helium bath. The bath pressure and the temperature are reduced by a series of two centrifugal cold compressors. Based on the measured characteristics of the subcooling system, the optimization of the operating method has been performed using an automatic control of the mass flow rate through the cold compressors by the heater. Consequently, the designed mass flow rate and temperature were obtained and stable long-term operations have been achieved. The improvement of the cryogenic stability was also confirmed and the maximum average current of three blocks of the coils has reached up to 11.833 kA.