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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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. Norajitra, W. W. Basuki, L. Spatafora, U. Stegmaier
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 1 | July-August 2014 | Pages 266-271
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-739
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A modular He-cooled divertor concept for DEMO has been pursued at KIT with the goal of reaching 10 MW/m2. The reference design uses small tungsten-based cooling fingers of about 20 mm in size. They consist of a tungsten tile as a thermal shield that is to be connected to a thimble heat sink structure from W–1 wt% La2O3 (WL10) tungsten alloy. The lower boundary of the divertor operating temperature window is predicted by the ductile-to-brittle temperature and the upper boundary by the recrystallization temperature of WL10 material, currently assumed at 600°C and 1300°C, respectively. The important requirements for the joint between the W tile and WL10 thimble are (a) functioning as a crack stopper, (b) resisting a high operating temperature of about 1200°C, and (c) using low-activation material as an interlayer. Previously used PdNi brazing material has been successfully tested at a brazing temperature of about 1270°C. The mock-ups produced in this way are sufficient for the HHF tests without neutrons. In a further step to approach the DEMO requirements with higher demands, the use of low-activating titanium with a melting point of 1668°C as bonding material was examined both for brazing and for diffusion welding of tungsten parts. This paper reports on the first successful test results of both high-temperature brazing and diffusion bonding techniques.