ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
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.
D. E. Post, R. Mattas
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 779-790
Plasma Heating, Impurity Control, and Fueling | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40130
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Poloidal divertors and pumped limiters are the leading candidates for impurity and particle control systems for ignited tokamaks. Such systems must be able to provide heat removal and He pumping while satisfying the requirements for (1) minimum plasma contamination by impurities, (2) reasonable component lifetime (∼ 1 year), and (3) minimum size and cost and maximum simplicity. The advantage of poloidal divertor systems is that they offer the possibility of low sputtering rates for the first wall components and modest pumping requirements due to the formation of a cool, dense plasma near the collector plates. Estimates made as part of the INTOR study indicate that the sputtering rates for pumped limiters could be unacceptably large. A engineering design study of a poloidal divertor system for an ignited tokamak indicates that such a system offers a reasonable solution to the impurity and particle control problem at only a modest increase in total reactor cost (∼7%) and complexity compared to a pumped limiter system.
