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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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
July 2025
Latest News
NRC approves V.C. Summer’s second license renewal
Dominion Energy’s V.C. Summer nuclear power plant, in Jenkinsville, S.C., has been authorized to operate for 80 years, until August 2062, following the renewal of its operating license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a second time.
Z. J. Bergstrom, M. A. Cusentino, B. D. Wirth
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 1 | January 2017 | Pages 122-135
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/FST16-121
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fusion reactor materials experience high ion fluxes and operating temperatures, which will ultimately produce subsurface helium and hydrogen bubbles in the tungsten divertor that can cause surface degradation and impact core plasma performance. Molecular dynamics simulations have been used to evaluate the behavior of hydrogen and helium near a 2-nm bubble or void below a tungsten surface as a function of surface orientation, temperature, gas atom concentration, initial hydrogen distribution, and depth below the surface. A clear tendency for hydrogen to segregate to the bubble-matrix interface is observed in these simulations, regardless of the initial spatial distribution of the hydrogen or simulation parameters. This segregation is due in part to a local minimum in the hydrogen energy at the periphery of the bubble. Further work is required to fully characterize the mechanism of this behavior and to assess the quantities of hydrogen in the bubble and at the bubble periphery.