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Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Latest News
General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
F. Cismondi, G. Aiello, S. Kecskes, G. Rampal
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 123-127
ITER Systems | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12338
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Six different breeding blanket concepts will be tested in ITER under the form of six different Test Blanket Modules (TBMs). In the frame of the activities of the European TBM Consortium of Associates the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed (HCPB-TBM) and the Helium Cooled Lithium Lead (HCLL) Test Blanket Modules are developed in Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and in CEA Saclay respectively. For each EU TBM concept, four different TBMs will be installed into one dedicated ITER equatorial port and tested during different test campaigns. The main goal of the ITER TBM program is providing DEMO relevant experimental data for the three main functions of a blanket module of a future fusion reactor, namely removing heat, breeding tritium and shielding sensitive components from radiation.The two EU TBMs share a common external structure (the so called TBM box) while featuring a different internal design of the Breeder Units (BUs), reflecting the different breeding concept. The preliminary design assessment of the two TBMs boxes is based on nuclear analyses and on the evaluation of the power produced in the BU and deposed on the TBM box structures. The preliminary thermomechanical designs have been presented and are based on steady state analyses.The TBMs will work under ITER loads, i.e. cyclic loads defined by the typical ITER pulses. Transient thermal and mechanical analyses of the two EU TBMs under a typical ITER pulse are presented in this paper, identifying the main design issues related to: structural behavior of the TBM box, codes and standard rules for assessing the TBM box integrity, TBM operational domain and related DEMO relevancy of the experimental campaign. Solutions to improve the weak structural points of the present designs are proposed, identifying the missing rules and the modelling development needs.
