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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.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Dagui Wang, Jin Wang, Liqin Hu, Jie Wu, Fang Wang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 8 | November 2019 | Pages 1024-1029
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1647082
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The construction of ITER indicates that the development of fusion energy has entered the engineering stage. Reliability assurance, which is essential in the design and safety supervision of a new reactor, is an urgent problem to be solved in the process of fusion reactor engineering. But, up to now, the reliability work of a fusion device has not considered the security of the fusion reactor. This paper proposes a method to establish a reliability index for fusion safety–related components. The reliability index is a useful indicator to evaluate the reliability of the system, and it is also the regulatory basis for regulatory authorities. First, this paper gives the recommended values of probability safety goals for a fusion reactor. Second, the reliability requirements for the fusion safety system that meet the safety goals are calculated. In this part, a Probability Safety Assessment (PSA) is adopted to establish the risk models and calculate the undesired consequences of a fusion reactor. Based on the PSA analysis results, a risk-informed approach is used to categorize the plant structures, systems, and components of the fusion reactor as four categories according to their safety significance. Last, the reliability index of the safety-related components is given based on the results of the risk-informed safety categorization and PSA analysis results. The validation of the reliability index system is still being studied, and this work is expected to support the reliability evaluation and safety supervision of a fusion reactor in the future.