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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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
October 2025
Latest News
Dry Ice Blasting: A Game-Changer for Safe Cleaning and Decontamination in Nuclear Power Plants
The nuclear energy industry is critical not only for meeting the world’s growing demand for electricity but also for advancing global decarbonization goals. As the sector evolves—through life extensions of existing plants, decommissioning, innovations like small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors, and new facility construction—the need for safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible maintenance and decommissioning continues to grow. Whether a plant is coming online, operating beyond its original design life, or entering decommissioning, cleanliness and operational integrity remain non-negotiable. That’s where dry ice blasting stands out—a powerful, safe cleaning method ideally suited for the high-stakes demands of nuclear environments.
R. Raman, T. R. Jarboe, J. E. Menard, S. P. Gerhardt, M. Ono, L. Baylor, W.-S. Lay
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 4 | November 2015 | Pages 797-805
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-916
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An important and urgent issue for ITER is predicting and controlling disruptions. Tokamaks and spherical tokamaks have the potential to disrupt. Methods to rapidly quench the discharge after an impending disruption is detected are essential to protect the vessel and internal components. The warning time for the onset of some disruptions in tokamaks could be <10 ms, which poses stringent requirements on the disruption mitigation system for reactor systems. In this proposed method, a cylindrical boron nitride projectile containing a radiative payload composed of boron, boron nitride, or beryllium particulate matter and weighing ~15 g is accelerated to velocities on the order of 1 to 2 km/s in <2 ms in a linear rail gun accelerator. A partially fragmented capsule is then injected into the tokamak discharge in the 3- to 6-ms timescale, where the radiative payload is dispersed. The device referred to as an electromagnetic particle injector has the potential to meet the short warning timescales for which a reactor disruption mitigation system must be built. The system is fully electromagnetic, with no mechanical moving parts, which ensures high reliability after a period of long standby.