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Division Spotlight
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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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!
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
L. M. Reusch, P. Franz, D. J. Den Hartog, J. A. Goetz, M. D. Nornberg, P. VanMeter
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 74 | Number 1 | July-August 2018 | Pages 167-176
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1404340
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Soft–X-ray (SXR) brightness measurements contain information on a number of physics parameters in fusion plasmas; however, it is nearly impossible to extract the information without modeling. A validated forward model is therefore necessary for the accurate interpretation of SXR measurements and will be critical in the burning plasma era, where medium- and high-Z impurities are ever present. The Atomic Data and Analysis Structure (ADAS) database is a powerful interpretive tool that is extensively used to model and predict atomic spectra, level populations, and ionization balance for fusion plasmas. These predictions are in good agreement with experimental measurements. However, continuum radiation in the X-ray range, while also modeled in ADAS, has not been rigorously verified or tested against experimental data. We therefore performed a systematic comparison of ADAS to a simplified model called PFM. PFM only calculates continuum radiation but shows good agreement with experimental data when only continuum radiation is present. ADAS and the simplified model agree to within 1% to 2% indicating that ADAS is calculating continuum radiation correctly. We have also begun a validation of SXR brightness calculations from ADAS. The SXR brightness measurements modeled by ADAS agree well with experimental measurements from an extreme where the signal is dominated by line radiation continuously through another extreme where the signal is dominated by continuum emission. While this validation work is preliminary, it strongly suggests that ADAS accurately models the physics that lead to SXR radiation.