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Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Argonne research aims to improve nuclear fuel recycling and metal recovery
Servis
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory are investigating a used nuclear fuel recycling technology that could lead to a scaled-down and more efficient approach to metal recovery, according to a recent news article from the lab. The research, led by Argonne radiochemist Anna Servis with funding from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), could have an impact beyond the nuclear fuel cycle and improve other high-value metal processing, such as rare earth recovery, according to Argonne.
The research: Servis’s work is being carried out under ARPA-E’s CURIE (Converting UNF Radioisotopes Into Energy) program. The specific project—Radioisotope Capture Intensification Using Rotating Packed Bed Contactors—started in 2023 and is scheduled to end in January 2026.
Stephan A. Letts, Jared F. Hund, Justin Sin, Jonathan Monterrosa, Brian Motta, Rod Cahayag, Nicole Petta
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 73 | Number 2 | March 2018 | Pages 265-272
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1387457
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Four different variations of doped, planar targets were fabricated using multilayer glow discharge polymerization for the foil thickness campaign at the Extended Performance Facility at the University of Rochester. The planar film targets consisted of from one to four layers of CH, CHGe, and CHSi. The composition of Ge and Si was controlled by the flow of dopant gas (either tetramethyl germane or tetramethyl silane) and measured with X-ray florescence. After laser cutting the 200 × 900 × 80-µm film targets out of the larger film, the targets were released from the substrate.
Coating nonuniformity when using an inductively coupled discharge device can be a challenge. We improved the uniformity by rotating the substrate. Film thickness was measured with a chromatic confocal sensor system. Thickness measurements were fit to a Gaussian function, which smoothed the thickness data set and allowed accurate interpolation of thickness measurements.
A challenge for freestanding, planar glow discharge polymer films is intrinsic stress in the coating. Prior to coating the final targets, the coating stress for various deposition parameters was measured. A series of runs with CH, CHGe, and CHSi were coated on thin silicon wafers. The wafers were characterized for bending before and after coating with a stylus profilometer to determine the coating stress using the Stony equation. In general, higher chamber operating pressures resulted in lower stress coatings.