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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Shahram Sharafat, Aaron Aoyama, Nasr Ghoniem, Brian Williams
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 203-207
Divertor & High Heat Flux Components | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-293
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A flat-plate He-cooled divertor would provide a flat surface facing the plasma, would minimize the number of otherwise complex sub-modules needed to cool large areas, and could greatly reduce the complexity of the coolant manifold systems.We recently designed and manufactured a unique flat-plate multichannel refractory metal heat exchanger (HX) that employs open-cell refractory foam to enhance heat transfer from the heated plate to the helium coolant. The structural material of the flat-plate HX box (102 mm wide and 165 mm long) is powder metallurgy molybdenum. Three flat-plate HX boxes were fabricated, two with a heated surface plate made of 4-mm thick Mo, TZM, and one 3-mm thick W. Four supply- and five return ducts, each 4.8 mm wide by 61 mm long run parallel underneath the heated plate. A thin sheet of Mo-foam (~2 mm × 70 mm × 80 mm; H/W/L) is sandwiched between the ducts and the heated plate. Advantages of using foam are detailed in a separate paper in these proceedings. The supply ducts push helium up towards the heated plate and then circumferentially through the foam into the neighboring return ducts. Key to optimizing the design was achieving uniform helium flow upwards to the heated plate along the entire length of the supply ducts, while simultaneously minimizing end-effects due to the short active duct length (~80 mm). A series of geometric features were designed to obtain relatively uniform flow distributions throughout the HX box. Here we report on the final design based on CFD analysis and thermo-structural finite element.