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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
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Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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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.
F. Genco, A. Hassanein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 339-343
Materials Development & Plasma-Material Interactions | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12376
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Off normal operating conditions resulting from plasma instabilities such as disruptions, edge-localized modes (ELM), and vertical displacement events (VDE) in tokamaks are to be expected with the potential of high energy deposition on plasma facing components (PFC). This high-energy dump in short duration, will result in extremely high temperatures of the PFC leading to melting and evaporation of the surfaces. Erosion resulting from these processes is life-limiting for the PFC as well as potential plasma contamination and degradation of performance. A comprehensive understanding based on the interplay of all physical processes during plasma instabilities on the divertor plate is necessary in order to improve reliability and characterize the performance of this key component. A novel particle-in-cell (PIC) technique has been developed and integrated into the existing HEIGHTS package in order to verify and have another perspective in assessing these problems.The HEIGHTS multi-dimensional integrated models take into account different stages of the plasma material interaction and its evolution along time. The extent of the damage will essentially depend on the intensity and duration of energy deposited on PFC. Both bulk and surface damages can take place depending on these parameters. For this reason different deposition times have been considered ranging from several microseconds to tens of milliseconds in order to provide comprehensive evolution of material erosion and transport. Comparison of the newly implemented PIC methods with current HEIGHTS existing models are discussed.
