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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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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
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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Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
T. Ozeki, N. Aiba, N. Hayashi, T. Takizuka, M. Sugihara, N. Oyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 1 | July 2006 | Pages 68-75
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1221
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A strategy for integrated modeling of burning plasmas at Japan Atomic Energy Agency is described. In order to simulate the burning plasma, which has the complex feature of widely different timescales and spatial scales, a simulation code cluster based on the TOPICS transport code is being developed by integrating heating and current drive, impurity transport, the edge pedestal model, the divertor model, the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), and the high-energy behavior model. The developed integration models are validated by fundamental research from JT-60U experiments and the simulation based on the First Principle in our strategy. The integration of MHD stability and the transport progresses for three phenomena with different timescales of neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) (~NTM ~ 10-2R), beta limits (~Alfvén), and edge-localized modes (ELMs) (intermittent of E and Alfvén). Here, R, Alfvén, and E are the resistive skin time, the Alfvén transit time, and the energy confinement time, respectively. The integrated model of the NTM is produced by coupling the modified Rutherford equation with the transport equation. The integrated model of the beta limits is developed by the low-n stability analysis of downstreaming data from the TOPICS code. The integrated model of the ELM is developed by the iterative calculation of the MARG2D ideal MHD stability code and the TOPICS code. These models are being validated by the data from the JT-60 experiments and estimate the plasma performance for burning plasmas.
