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
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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
Jan 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
A more open future for nuclear research
A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.
Tomoaki Hino, Takahiro Jinushi, Yuko Hirohata, Masao Hashiba, Yuji Yamauchi, Yutai Katoh, Akira Kohyama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 43 | Number 2 | March 2003 | Pages 184-190
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A259
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To employ SiC/SiC composite as blanket components of a fusion reactor, permeation behavior of helium gas has to be investigated since the helium is used as the coolant. For this purpose, a vacuum system consisting of upstream and downstream chambers was fabricated for the measurement of permeability, and the permeability was measured for several SiC/SiC composite materials recently developed. For the pressure range from 102 to 105 Pa in the upstream chamber, the pressure rise due to the permeation of helium in the downstream chamber linearly increased with the pressure of the upstream chamber. Then, the permeability was roughly constant for the pressure range of the upstream chamber.The permeabilities of SiC/SiC composites produced by polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (PIP), hot pressing (HP) and melt-infiltration-finished PIP were 5 × 10-5, 4 × 10-6, and 9 × 10-7 m2/s, respectively. In the matrix structure of the SiC/SiC composite made by the PIP method with a high permeability, cracking in the matrix and pores of micron size were observed. Compared to these materials, SiC/SiC composites produced by liquid phase sintering using submicron or nanopowder of -SiC and the HP method had extremely low permeabilities. The permeability of the SiC/SiC composite made by using submicron or nanopowder of -SiC became 1.5 × 10-9 or 4 × 10-11 m2/s.Based upon the present data, the helium gas flow was analyzed for a blanket module consisting of only SiC/SiC composite. If a vacuum pump is attached to the module, the helium leak into a plasma can be ignored, compared to the heliums produced by fusion reactions. Hence, the entire module can be made by only SiC/SiC composite, from a viewpoint of helium permeation.