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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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Yoshihiko Nagamine, Hideki Nakashima
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 35 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 62-70
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A78
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A magnetic thrust chamber concept in a laser fusion rocket is suitable for controlling the plasma flow, and it has an advantage in that thermalization with wall structures in a thrust chamber can be avoided. Rayleigh-Taylor instability would occur at the surface of expanding plasma, and it would lead to the degradation of thrust efficiency, which would result from diffusion of the plasma through an ambient magnetic field. A three-dimensional hybrid particle-in-cell code has been developed to analyze the plasma instability in the magnetic thrust chamber and to estimate the thrust efficiency. It is found that the instability would not have serious effects on the thrust efficiency; thrust efficiency in terms of momentum obtained here amounts to 65%. The effects of varying parameters on the thrust efficiency are also studied. The thrust efficiency seemed to reach its maximum value around c = 50 deg, where c is an angle subtended from the initial plasma position at the z axis to the solenoidal coil and its dependence on magnetic field energy produced by the coil is found to be weak for the cases studied here.