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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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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!
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Latest News
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
K. Takase, M. Z. Hasan, T. Kunugi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | May 1992 | Pages 1840-1844
Plasma-Facing Component | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29986
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Convective heat transfer in non-MHD laminar flow through rectangular channels in the first wall and limiter/divertor plates of fusion reactors has been analyzed numerically. Even for uniform heat flux, the Nusselt number (Nu) is not constant along the face of a rectangular channel, because the velocity is much smaller near a corner. For uniform heat flux, Nu varies by 67% from the center of a side to the corner (6.7 to 2.2). Therefore, the corners of a rectangular channel are possible hot-spot areas of concern for thermal-hydraulic designs. In addition, the surface heat flux on coolant channels in the plasma-facing components varies circumferentially. This nonuniformity of surface heat flux also affects the Nu. At the center of a side, Nu can be reduced from 6.7 to 2.8, i.e. by about 58%. For large nonuniformity of surface heat flux, the Nu at some locations can become infinity or negative; infinity, when the coolant/wall interface temperature becomes equal to the coolant bulk temperature and, negative, when the bulk temperature becomes larger than the interface temperature at these locations. The entry length is also increased due to the nonuniformity of surface heat flux. This increase can be as much as 4 times the entry length for uniform heat flux. For safe thermal-hydraulic designs of the first wall and limiter/divertor plates of fusion reactors, these effects must be taken into consideration.