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
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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
Aug 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2024
Latest News
Nuclear new build procurement considerations
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best time to enhance the ability to support operations and maintenance for a new plant is before construction starts. This is one of many lessons learned by the currently operating nuclear fleet. As construction and startup of many nuclear facilities was completed, it quickly became evident that the ability to efficiently support operations and maintenance was limited. Most of the information necessary to establish and manage procurement of spare and replacement items, maintenance, and configuration of the facilities was unavailable and had to be gathered on a case-by-case, “on-demand” basis. Absence of necessary information and the associated challenges resulted in the need for staff augmentation and multiyear-long projects to develop equipment bills of material and maintenance programs and to perform technical evaluations for the huge quantities of spare and replacement items being requested.
Jonathan Coburn, Mohamed Bourham
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 4 | November 2017 | Pages 692-698
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1352426
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Innovative materials are investigated using a simulated electrothermal (ET) plasma to characterize erosion characteristics under ITER-relevant off-normal conditions. The tungsten alternatives investigated are mono-crystalline silicon carbides and MAX Phase ceramics. Preliminary code simulations using the ETFLOW plasma code are presented to assess erosive behavior in preparation for future experiments at ORNL’s electrothermal high heat flux experiment and the DiMES experiments for induced disruption on the DIII-D tokamak. Results indicate that erosion properties for SiC and two commercially available MAX Phases, Ti3SiC2 and Ti2AlC, compare well with tungsten and other ITER relevant components. A material-specific ablation constant, measured as total mass removed per incident heat flux per second, serves as a means for directly comparing erosion properties. Tungsten possesses the highest ablation constant value when compared to carbon, beryllium and the alternative materials α-6H SiC, Ti3SiC2, and Ti2AlC. The ablation thickness, calculated from the ablation constant and the specific density of the material, provides a comparison of surface thickness lost during a given off-normal event. Carbon (4.25 cm3/MJ) and tungsten (5.98 cm3/MJ) possess the lowest values. The alternative materials Ti3SiC2 (7.32 cm3/MJ) and α-6H SiC (8.44 cm3/MJ) exhibit the next best values, with Ti2AlC being the least effective (9.35 cm3/MJ). SiC shows the best vapor shielding efficiency of the three alternative materials, with Ti3SiC2 and Ti2AlC giving similar efficiencies. Taking into account vapor shielding effects using both opacity and fractional models, SiC exhibits the best ablation characteristics of the three materials in terms of thickness loss, with Ti3SiC2 giving similar results and overall appearing the superior of the two MAX Phases.