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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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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.
Tim Teichmann, Xueli Luo, Thomas Giegerich, Christian Day
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 3 | May 2024 | Pages 399-410
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2229679
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The requirement for a reduction of the tritium inventory of the European demonstration fusion reactor (EU-DEMO) has led to the active research and development of a continuously working pumping process termed “KALPUREX.” This process foresees the direct recycling of a large fraction of the unburnt hydrogen isotopologues via superpermeation in metal foil pumps during the burn phase. The remaining exhaust gas mixture is pumped by continuously operating, mercury-driven linear diffusion pumps. Diffusion pumps are kinetic high vacuum pumps whose pumping principle is based on the momentum transfer from a supersonic mercury vapor jet to the pumped gas mixture. Like many high vacuum pumps, they feature species-dependent pumping speeds. In the present work, we develop a simplified hybrid model of the high vacuum pumping train in order to estimate the effective pumping speed of the integrated system. The results of this model and its implications on the further development of the vacuum system are discussed for the burn and dwell phases of EU-DEMO.