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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.
Meeting Spotlight
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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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.
N. Hosogane, H. Ninomiya, M. Matsukawa, T. Ando, Y. Neyatani, H. Horiike, S. Sakurai, K. Masaki, M. Yamamoto, K. Kodama, T. Sasajima, T. Terakado, S. Ohmori, Y. Ohmori, J. Okano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 42 | Number 2 | September-November 2002 | Pages 368-385
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A234
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The design of the JT-60U tokamak, the configuration of the coil power supplies, and the operational experiences gained to date are reviewed. JT-60U is a large tokamak upgraded from the original JT-60 in order to obtain high plasma current, large plasma volume, and highly elongated divertor configurations. All components inside the toroidal magnetic field coils, such as vacuum vessel, poloidal magnetic field coils, divertor, etc., were modified. Various technologies and ideas were introduced to develop these components; for example, a multi-arc double skin wall structure for the vacuum vessel and a functional poloidal magnetic field coil system with taps for obtaining various plasma configurations. Furthermore, boron-carbide coated carbon fiber composite (CFC) tiles were used as divertor tiles to reduce erosion of carbon-base tiles. Later, a semiclosed divertor with pumps, for which cryo-panels originally used for NBI units were converted, was installed in the replacement of the open divertor. These development and operational results provide data for future tokamaks. Major failures experienced in the long operational period of JT-60U, such as water leakage from the toroidal magnetic field coil, fracture of carbon tiles, and breakdown of a filter capacitor, are described. As a maintenance issue for tokamaks using deuterium fueling gas, a method for reducing radiation exposure of in-vessel workers is described.