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Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.
P. K. Sharma
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 65 | Number 1 | January 2014 | Pages 103-119
Lecture | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-639
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) system, which is a mature, robust, and reliable heating and current drive system in a large number of tokamaks, is designed, developed, and being commissioned on the steady-state superconducting tokamak (SST-1) for driving 220 kA of plasma current, noninductively, for 1000 s, at nominal plasma parameters (plasma density ∼2×1019 m−3, temperature ∼1 keV, toroidal magnetic field ∼3 T), using four 3.7-GHz, 500-kW continuous wave (cw) klystrons. It employs a conventional grill antenna to launch toroidal lower hybrid waves asymmetrically, with a parallel refractive index N∥ of approximately 2.25 at 90-deg relative phasing of adjacent channels. The system is very complex and requires interfacing with several subsystems such as high-power radio-frequency systems, high-voltage power supply systems, auxiliary power supply systems, efficient thermal management systems, complex networks of transmission line systems, and robust and reliable data acquisition and control systems. With the SST-1 LHCD system as a case study, this lecture gives a broad overview of the physics and design layout of LHCD systems. It addresses cutting-edge technologies employed in realizing the system and gives the present status and advances made for cw operation. The challenges and opportunities are also highlighted.
