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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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.
G. W. Barnes, A. Janos, D. Loesser, D. K. Owens, M. Ulrickson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1761-1764
Impurity Control and Plasma-Facing Component | Proceedings of the Ninth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Oak Brook, Illinois, October 7-11, 1990) | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29597
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The TFTR Bumper Limiter (BL)1,2 is a continuous toroidal belt limiter which subtends 120° poloidally on the inner wall of the vacuum vessel, is symmetric about the midplane of the vessel and has a total area of 22 m2. The plasma facing surface of the BL consists of graphite tiles mounted on water-cooled Inconel backing plates. During plasma operation with high power neutral beam injection (NBI), “carbon blooms”3 developed when surface temperatures at localized areas on the limiter exceeded 1700 C. The blooms severely limited plasma performance. During the February–April 1990 shutdown, 721 of the original POCO graphite tiles were replaced with 4D Carbon Fiber Composite (CFC)4 tiles to improve the performance of the Bumper Limiter. Another source of blooms was cutouts in the BL made for diagnostic access to the plasma. During the shutdown, the edge tiles at the cutouts were modified to reduce the power flux to levels insufficient to cause a bloom. This paper describes the tile replacement and modification program including material selection and the rationale for the tile replacement locations. The methods used to mechanically align the midplane of the limiter to ±0.5mm are addressed. Future plans to align the entire limiter to the toroidal magnetic field to similar accuracy using magnetic and mechanical measurements will also be discussed. The improvement in plasma performance due to the suppression of blooms due to these upgrades will be shown.