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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
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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Latest News
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Korbinian Moser, Alexander Bock, Pierre David, Matthias Bernert, Rainer Fischer, ASDEX Upgrade Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 8 | November 2022 | Pages 607-616
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2022.2072659
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper explores the application of Gaussian process tomography (GPT) to the bolometer diagnostic at ASDEX Upgrade. Previous work is extended by nonstationary Cartesian kernels and kernels that incorporate magnetic equilibrium information. With the help of existing tomograms from actual shots, a set of hyperparameters working well on a broad range of bolometer measurements is found. While other tomography methods usually rely on additional information like the magnetic equilibrium, those are not required by the GPT method, and it is shown that the method presented here can produce good results without additional information. In addition, the real-time capability of this approach is successfully demonstrated by computing tomograms for 10s of bolometer data in under 5s. This is possible without providing additional information besides bolometer measurements and enables the possibility of real-time reactor control for the future.
