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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.
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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
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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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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.
A. D. Beklemishev
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 90-93
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11581
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Feedback control is routinely used in modern plasma traps for adjusting plasma equilibrium on the transport time scale. Some intrinsic properties of magnetic mirrors make it possible to employ feedback control for stabilization of flute modes as well. Purely electromagnetic plasma-control system that is independent of line-tying or plasma conductivity to the end-plates is proposed. The system adds transverse flexibility to the plasma column, so that any growing perturbation can be deformed to become anti-ballooning. Anti-ballooning form means reduced flute amplitude in bad-curvature regions and enhanced amplitude in expanders or other traditional stabilizers, so that energy of the perturbation becomes positive and the mode is suppressed. Detailed analysis shows that transverse flexibility (or tail-waving) of the discharge can be employed for feedback stabilization even without good-curvature regions. The only requirement is that the discharge inertia (field-weighted plasma density) and the pressure-weighted field curvature are differently distributed along the discharge. If based on inertia, the stabilization mechanism resembles the rope-walker act. Estimates show that the power cost of such stabilization is reasonable and scales inversely with the trap length.