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
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.
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.
Veselov A.V., Drozhin V.S., Druzhinin A.A., Izgorodin V.M. Iiyushechkin B.N., Kirillov G.A., Komleva G.V., Korochkin A.M., Medvedev E.F., Nikolaev G.P., Pikulin I.V., Pinegin A.V., Punin V.T., Romaev V.N., Sumatokhin V.L., Tarasova N.N., Tachaev G.V., Cherkesova I.N.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 5 | December 1995 | Pages 1838-1843
Technical Paper | Inertial Confinement Fusion Targets | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30422
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The main effort of the ICF target fabrication group is support of the experiments performed on the “ISKRA-4” and “ISKRA-5” laser systems. The main types of targets used in these experiments are direct drive, inverted corona, and indirect drive. A direct drive target is a glass spherical container coated with a metal or polymeric film and filled with a D-T mixture and some diagnostic gas.1,2 The inverted corona target is a spherical shell with holes for introducing laser radiation. The inside surface of the shell is coated with a compound containing heavy hydrogen isotopes.3,4 The indirect drive target is assembled from a spherical shell with holes for introducing laser radiation and a direct drive target placed in the shell center. The inside surface of the shell is coated with high-Z material5 (Fig. 1). For production of direct drive targets, manufacturing techniques have been developed for both hollow glass and polystyrene microspheres. Hollow glass microspheres are fabricated by free-fall of liquid glass drops or dry gel in a 4 meter vertical kiln.6 These methods allow us to manufacture glass microspheres with diameters from 50 µm to 1 mm, wall thicknesses from 0.5 to 10 µm, and aspect ratios (radius/wall) from 20 to 500. The microspheres have a thickness inhomogeneity less than 5% and non-sphericity less than 1%. Polystyrene microspheres are fabricated from polystyrene particles with a blowing agent in a similar vertical kiln. Polystyrene microspheres are fabricated with diameter up to 800 µm and wall thicknesses from 1 to 10 µm.