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Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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Latest News
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
P. B. Thompson for the ATF Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 450-455
Large Project | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40084
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Advanced Toroidal Facility (ATF) is a new magnetic plasma confinement device, under construction at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which will lead to improvements in toroidal magnetic fusion reactors. ATF is a type of stellarator known as a torsatron which theoretically has the capability to operate at ≥8% beta in steady state. The ATF plasma has a major radius of 2.1 m, an average minor radius of 0.3 m, and a field of 2 T for a 5-s duration or 1 T steady state. The ATF device consists of a helical field (HF) coil set, a set of poloidal field (PF) coils, an exterior shell structure to support the coils, and a thin, helically contoured vacuum vessel inside the coils. The ATF replaces the ISX-B tokamak at ORNL and will use the ISX-B auxiliary systems, including 4 MW of neutral injection heating and 0.2 MW of electron cyclotron heating. ATF is scheduled to start operation in the fall of 1986. An overview of the ATF device is presented, including details of the construction process envisioned.
