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
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Dennis L. Youchison, Alex M. Melin, Arnold Lumsdaine, Charles R. Schaich, Gregory R. Hanson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 324-330
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1333855
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The electron cyclotron heating system (ECH) on ITER uses 24 evacuated microwave transmission lines carrying up to 1.4 MW of power each at 170 GHz to provide resonance heating of electrons in the ITER plasma and to enable plasma current drive. A critically important component in this system is the microwave switch that allows the microwaves to be directed from the gyrotrons to either dummy loads or between launchers in the upper and equatorial ports of the ITER tokamak while maintaining the vacuum integrity of the transmission lines. A moveable, water-cooled CuCrZr mirror is used to redirect the microwave transmission between two orthogonal waveguides.
In this article we describe the optimized design of the mirror cooling passages produced by computational fluid dynamics analysis using ANSYS CFX with k-ε and k-ω shear stress transport turbulence models, and verify that the design parameters for mass flow rate, inlet temperature and pressure are adequate for good thermomechanical performance. Non-uniform heating of the mirror face from the incident microwaves induces deflections that should be less than 25 microns to meet the integrated transmission line efficiency specification. In the current 1.4 MW switch design, 0.03 kg/s of 36°C water at 10 bar inlet pressure can remove the 2660 W of ohmic heating in the mirror produced by the elliptical polarization power and maintain the surface temperature below 150°C. The water delta-T is 21°C with a 0.5 bar pressure drop in the mirror. The maximum predicted displacement in the center of the mirror face is less than 25 μm.