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
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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.
Yousry Gohar, Shi-Tien Yang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 2 | September 1985 | Pages 2010-2020
Technical Paper | Blanket Comparison and Selection Study | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A24576
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Blanket Comparison and Selection Study (BCSS) carried out 16 blanket concepts [7 tokamaks and 9 tandem mirror reactors (TMRs)] for the final evaluation process. This process requires all the blanket design parameters, including the energy multiplication factors, the atomic displacement rate in the first wall, and the shielding definition for the reactor. A shielding assessment is performed to determine shielding materials, compositions, arrangements, and thicknesses for each concept. Two shielding criteria are adopted for this assessment: (a) workers are permitted in the reactor hall 1 day after shutdown, and (b) superconductor coils are required to function for a 150 MW·yr/m2 deuterium-tritium neutron exposure at the first wall without a change in their performances. For the design purpose, the occupational exposure is 0.5 mrem/h, based on working 8 h/day and 40 h/week. This dose level is used to concur with current practice in the nuclear industry and the exposure policy of the U.S. Department of Energy, which limits the on-site personnel exposure level to less than one-fifth of the maximum permissible dose equivalent limits. The personnel exposure criterion is used to size the outboard bulk shield for tokamak reactors and the shield thickness between the central cell coils for TMRs. In the fusion power environment the insulator materials are the most sensitive components in the superconductor coils from the radiation damage point of view. A maximum insulator dose of 1010 rad in the thermal insulator is used to size the bulk shield in the inboard section of the tokamak reactors and the central cell sections under the coils for TMRs. As a result of this criterion, all other nuclear responses do not exceed any design limit for the superconductor materials or the copper stabilizer. Also, the nuclear heating in the winding materials is ∼0.1 mW/cm3, which is very close to the optimum design conditions for TMRs and quite satisfactory for the design of the toroidal field coils in tokamak reactors. An analysis for the energy multiplication factors, the energy loss to the shield, the atomic displacement rate in the first wall, and the shield definition for the 16 blanket concepts of the BCSS is provided.
