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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
J. K. Anderson, M. Yoda, S. I. Abdel-Khalik, D. L. Sadowski, ARIES Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 1 | July 2003 | Pages 132-137
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - IFE Chamber Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A322
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fusion event in inertial fusion energy reactors can damage the chamber first walls. The Prometheus design study used a high-speed tangentially injected thin film of molten lead to protect the upper endcap of the reactor chamber. To assure full chamber coverage, the film must remain attached. Film detachment due to gravitational effects is most likely to occur on downward-facing surfaces.Experiments were therefore conducted on turbulent water films with initial thicknessess and speeds up to 2 mm and 11 m/s, respectively, onto the downward-facing surface of a flat plate 0-45° below the horizontal. Average film detachment and lateral extent along the plate were measured. Detachment length appears to be a linear function of Froude number. Results for film flows over wetting and nonwetting surfaces show that surface wettability has a major impact. The data are used to establish conservative "design windows" for film detachment. Film flow around cylindrical obstacles, modeling protective dams around chamber penetrations, was also studied. The results suggest that cylindrical dams cannot be used to protect penetrations, and that new chamber penetration geometries that avoid flow separation are a major design issue for this type of thin liquid protection.