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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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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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.
Parthasarathi Das, Rita Paikaray, Subrata Samantaray, Bipin Kumar Sethy, Amulya Kumar Sanyasi, Joydeep Ghosh
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 1 | January 2022 | Pages 56-65
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1938906
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The pulsed washer gun–generated plasma released into an evacuated chamber has been diagnosed using the spectroscopic technique. By analyzing the recorded spectral lines of argon plasma, the electron temperature is determined using the spectral line ratios of the Ar ion and Ar atom following the Corona model. The light is collected using an optical fiber placed at a glass port of the chamber and fed into a digital spectrometer to obtain the emitted spectra from plasma in front of the plasma gun mouth. As the plasma diffuses after ejecting out into the evacuated chamber from the plasma gun, the Corona model is an appropriate model for the electron temperature estimation. Large differences in estimated electron temperatures are observed when the Boltzmann plot method, assuming the local thermal equilibrium model for the atomic and ionic lines separately, is used. To study the effect of base pressure in the evacuated chamber on the electron temperature of the plasma ejecting out of the gun, the electron temperature with different base pressures ranging from 20 to 100 Pa is measured and analyzed.