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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.
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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
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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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Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
M. Murakami, J. M. Park, T. C. Luce, M. R. Wade, R. M. Hong
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 54 | Number 4 | November 2008 | Pages 994-1002
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST08-A1915
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Off-axis neutral beam (NB) current drive (CD) (NBCD) has the potential to supply substantial off-axis CD for the demonstration steady-state, Advanced Tokamak scenarios. A modification of the two existing DIII-D NB beamlines is proposed to allow off-axis CD with NB injection (NBI) vertically steered to drive current as far off axis as half the plasma radius. The profile and magnitude of the driven current is calculated using the NUBEAM Monte Carlo module in the TRANSP and ONETWO transport codes. When the beam is injected in the same direction as the toroidal field, off-axis CD of [approximately equal to]45 kA/MW is calculated at normalized radius (square root of the toroidal flux), = 0.5 with full-width at half-maximum of 0.45 in . The dimensionless CD efficiency is comparable or somewhat better than that for electron cyclotron CD (ECCD) at the same location and plasma parameters. The efficiency stays nearly constant in going from on-axis to off-axis CD. The localization and magnitude of the off-axis NBCD are sensitive to the alignment of the NBI relative to the helical pitch of the magnetic field lines and thus to the direction of the toroidal field and plasma current. The driven current is still localized off axis for fast ion diffusivities up to 1 m2/s. The calculations show that the off-axis NBCD can supply much of the off-axis CD for the steady-state scenarios under consideration, leaving ECCD for fine-tuning of the current profile and real-time control.
