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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
A more open future for nuclear research
A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.
John M. Scott, Per F. Peterson, Alan Burnham
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 459-463
Plasma Facing Components Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963655
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The first wall of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) target chamber will be a source of contamination for the final optics assemblies (FOA) debris shields. The expected x-ray fluence on NIF can be as high as 2 J/cm2 for 20 MJ target yields. This is sufficiently intense to mobilize first wall material and contaminants that have been deposited on the first wall. Since 90% of the aluminum target chamber surface area will consist of first wall panels, it is critical to choose a material that is not easily mobilized by target x-ray emissions. Additionally, it would be advantageous to have a first wall design that provides a sink for mobilized material in the target chamber. With these issues at hand, a louver design has been proposed as the configuration of the NIF first wall. Experiments simulating the proposed louver geometry were fielded on Nova at x-ray fluence levels comparable to those expected on NIF. The results of these experiments were applied to the understanding of NIF contamination issues and used as a benchmark for the TSUNAMI code. Numerical studies were performed to measure the collection efficiency of the louver design where several parameters including louver length, distance between louvers, and x-ray fluence were varied.