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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
Peter H. Titus, Charles Kessel
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 7 | November 2021 | Pages 557-567
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1898303
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
New superconductor types and performance levels are being developed and have enabled consideration of higher-field, smaller-size devices. In this paper, sizing options for the next Fusion Energy System Study (FESS) design study are explored. The 2016/2017 baseline Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) used a bucked and wedged solution with a large external case mainly to support out-of-plane loads and allow radial servicing. Use of a larger case to provide inner leg compression may be needed for the higher-field, smaller devices. These structural concepts have been employed in FIRE, IGNITOR, and C-Mod. Each of these concepts will be investigated as candidates for a next machine study. Recommendations will be made as to how these concepts can be incorporated into systems codes.
The iterative design of the poloidal field coil system and the iterative choice of scenario currents are needed to go along with toroidal field (TF) coil support concepts. Concepts that employ a bucked solution require assessment of cancellation of the central solenoid radially outward and the TF radially inward load, and thus affect the sizing of both. Ideally better but simple structural models of the poloidal coils can be built into the scenario development codes to address advanced TF support schemes. Simplified spreadsheet assessments of structural concepts are presented, and these are benchmarked against finite element analyses. Possible options for the FNSF and next machine studies are assessed in terms of achievable fields and space allocation.