ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Oliviero Barana, Cédric Boulbe, Sylvain Brémond, Simone Mannori, Philippe Moreau, Nathalie Ravenel, EFDA ITM Task Force contributors
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | August 2011 | Pages 819-824
Computational Tools, Modeling & Validation | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12487
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Plasma control is recognized to be a crucial issue for the achievement of ITER objectives. One of the most challenging tasks for the preparation of the ITER operation will therefore be the design and qualification of a variety of control algorithms. This highlights the need for a simulation platform capable of supporting the design, integration and test of advanced control algorithms on complex physics models. With this aim, a generic multi-purpose “flight” simulator (GMFS) is being developed at IRFM (Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnétique), CEA Cadarache, France.The GMFS is based on Kepler, a free interdisciplinary open-source Java software. Kepler will be used as a simulation platform to test and improve control algorithms before their actual use in the real control system. The physics and engineering codes complementary to the control algorithms will be supplied by the EFDA Integrated Tokamak Modelling Task Force (ITM-TF). The GMFS will be benchmarked, at the beginning, on the Tore Supra Tokamak.In this paper we will report on a test case suitable to demonstrate the feasibility of a part of GMFS, namely the development of workflows where to create and verify ITER plasma boundary feedback control algorithms. It consists of: a) derivation of a linear plasma response model; b) design of a control diagram under the ScicosLab/Scicos open-source software; c) porting of the diagram under Kepler; d) substitution of the Kepler controller with a controller generated by a special Scicos extension; e) substitution of the simplified static linear model with the free-boundary equilibrium code CEDRES++.The test case demonstrated the feasibility of employing Kepler, ScicosLab/Scicos and other expressly-made codes in view of the conception of valuable instruments for the active control of ITER and it can be considered as a first step in this direction.
