ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
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.
V. Mertens, C. Aubanel, O. Gruber, M. Kaufmann, G. Neu, G. Raupp, H. Richter, W. Treutterer, D. Zasche, Th. Zehetbauer, ASDEX Upgrade Team, NBI Team, ICRH Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 32 | Number 3 | November 1997 | Pages 459-467
Technical Paper | Plasma Control Issues for Tokamaks | doi.org/10.13182/FST97-A8
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) must run near operational limits to produce high-performance plasmas that, beyond position and shape control, rely on optimized control of additional plasma parameters. Control of single parameters, such as beta, plasma stored energy, or ion cyclotron resonance heating antenna coupling, has already been reported. Further performance improvements can be achieved by coordinated control of combinations of parameters. These may be specific to the different phases of a discharge, e.g., for radiative boundary concepts. A growing understanding of discharge behavior will lead to the identification of better control scenarios involving both new parameters and control methods. This requires a universal platform into which control algorithms can flexibly be integrated to adapt to interesting discharge scenarios. With the multitude of processes expected to be implemented, management of real-time processes becomes crucial. This paper explains how this issue is raised by the requirement specification of the controller and how it influences design, implementation, and operation of the plasma performance controller. Examples such as the achievement of completely detached H-mode plasmas demonstrate the working method and its effectiveness.