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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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 Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Marco Riva, Alice Ying, Mohamed Abdou, Mu-Young Ahn, Seungyon Cho
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 8 | November 2019 | Pages 1037-1045
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1643691
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this paper, dynamic tritium flow rates and inventories of the outer fuel cycle (OFC) of a DEMOnstration nuclear fusion reactor (DEMO) are analyzed to determine the initial amount of tritium that has to be prepared to sustain plasma operation at reactor start-up, i.e., until tritium bred in blankets is extracted and available. The main components of the helium coolant ceramic reflector tritium breeding system were modeled in detail with the use of COMSOL Multiphysics and integrated into a system-level model within the MATLAB/Simulink platform to simulate OFC tritium streams. Furthermore, a control volume analysis was derived to incorporate the OFC flow rates calculated with the dynamic integrated numerical tool for initial start-up tritium inventory (ISTI) analysis. We found that the tritium processing time of the tritium extraction system (TES) plays a critical role for ISTI assessment. On one hand, for batchwise technology such as adsorption/regeneration columns, the OFC-attributed ISTI is ~2.6 kg calculated for a 3-GW fusion power reactor. On the other hand, online extraction techniques such as catalytic membrane reactors offer continuous operation and result in ~10 to 250 g of ISTI depending on the TES efficiency and breeder material tritium residence time. The helium coolant system (HCS) line has a minor impact on ISTI since tritium retention in HCS components is orders of magnitude lower than the TES line when a tungsten plasma-facing-component coating is implemented.