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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.
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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Sal B. Rodriguez, Jason Cook
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 499-505
Technical Paper | The Technology of Fusion Energy - Inertial Fusion Technology: Targets and Chambers | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1538
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Z-IFE (inertial fusion energy) plant is a unique, inertial confined, fusion energy concept in which high yield targets will be ignited to fusion, yielding brief energy bursts in the 3 to 20-gigajoule range. The fusion reaction yields an energetic burst that consists principally of neutrons, X rays, and charged particles. The X rays rapidly attenuate in matter, causing the material to expand rapidly, thus generating a strong shock wave. This shock wave must be mitigated if the Z-IFE chamber is to last for a period of 30 to 50 years.ALEGRA simulations were conducted for a hypothetical Z-IFE chamber filled with argon gas and ionized by an X ray source. The calculations employed a set of sophisticated models, including Saha ionization, XSN and CDF opacities, bremsstrahlung radiation, linearized diffusion of X ray photons for a blackbody, fully-coupled magnetohydrodynamic models, electron thermal conduction, Spitzer thermal conductivity with cold material interpolation, and Mie-Gruneisen EOS.In order to obtain confidence in the results, a laser experiment from UCSD was simulated. In the experiment, laser photons were used to ionize argon gas. The simulations showed that ALEGRA quite successfully calculated the measured temperature, level of ionization, and spatial evolution of the argon plasma.