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
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Fatollah Tehranian, Mohamed A. Abdou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 27 | Number 3 | May 1995 | Pages 298-313
Technical Paper | Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30392
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Accurate prediction of the thermomechanical responses of particle beds in fusion blankets depends strongly on the availability of experimental data on their thermal properties as a function of the blanket operating conditions. In this study, a series of experiments is conducted to measure the effective thermal conductivity and interface conductance of single-size aluminum, beryllium, and lithium zirconate particle beds as a function of applied external load in the 0- to 1.6-MPa range. Experiments are carried out with both helium and air as cover gas over a pressure range of 30 to 760 Torr. In both the aluminum and beryllium beds, as the applied load is increased to 1.5 MPa, the effective thermal conductivity increases by a factor of ∼3 to 7 in an air cover gas and by a factor of ∼2 to 3 in helium. With 1.2-mm lithium zirconate particles and air or helium as the cover gas, changes in the bed thermal conductivity when the applied load is varied in the 0 to 1.6-MPa range are small and within the experimental error. The increase in the interface conductance values with applied external load shows variations similar to those of the thermal conductivity. Based on the Hertz elastic equation and finite element models, the particle-to-particle contact areas as a function of the applied external load are evaluated and used in a predictive model by Bauer, Schlunder, and Zehner to calculate the effective thermal conductivity of a beryllium particle bed as a function of external pressure. The experimental results are in good agreement with the model predictions.