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
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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.
H. Kakiuchi et al. (19P24)
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 2 | February 2007 | Pages 280-282
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1375
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An inner mirror throat of the plug/barrier cell is one of the noticeable locations in the tandem mirror GAMMA10, because the location is the most suitable for a measurement of the ions bounced by the plug potential, which are essential for the tandem mirror confinement. A lithium beam probe was designed as a main part of the diagnostic system to measure the radial profiles of the electron and neutral particle density at the inner mirror throat. A neutral lithium beam is injected into the plasma and the light emitted from the beam is detected. We estimated the upper limit of the plasma density measurable by the lithium beam probe and discussed validity of the reconstruction for various types of radial profiles. We adopted, at first, a Gaussian type of radial profile of the density with the radius of 2.5 cm for the estimation of the upper limit of the density. It was found that the profile reconstruction was carried out well up to the peak density of 5 × 1013 cm-3, and also well even in the non-axisymmetric radial profile. This method is quite appropriate for the measurement of the density profile at the inner mirror throat.
