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Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
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Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Latest News
WEST claims latest plasma confinement record
The French magnetic confinement fusion tokamak known as WEST maintained a plasma in February for more than 22 minutes—1,337 seconds, to be precise—and “smashed” the previous record plasma duration for a tokamak with a 25 percent improvement, according to the CEA, which operates the machine. The previous 1,006-second record was set by China’s EAST just a few weeks prior. Records are made to be broken, but this rapid progress illustrates a collective, global increase in plasma confinement expertise, aided by tungsten in key components.
John G. Kollas and Allan F. Henry
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 60 | Number 4 | August 1976 | Pages 464-471
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A26907
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A method for obtaining homogenized group-diffusion-theory parameters for heterogeneous nodes (fuel regions plus control elements plus structure) in slab geometry is described. The parameters obtained reproduce exactly the neutron leakage and the integrated reaction rates of the node when it becomes part of a reactor. However, for asymmetric nodes they depend on the fluxes and currents at the surfaces of the node. The sensitivity of this dependence is examined for a one-group model, and numerical examples are given to illustrate that for symmetric nodes, the equivalent parameters are indeed exact and independent of conditions outside the node. For unsymmetric nodes, it is shown that using a set of parameters that is an average of two sets of “exact parameters,” one appropriate to large values of current-to-flux ratio at one of the nodal surfaces and the other appropriate to small values, still yields quite accurate results. For both cases comparisons with results obtained using standard flux-weighted parameters are made.