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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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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.
Ahmad M. Ibrahim, Scott W. Mosher, Thomas M. Evans, Douglas E. Peplow, Mohamed E. Sawan, Paul P. H. Wilson, John C. Wagner, Thad Heltemes
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 251-258
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT175-251
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The immense size and complex geometry of the ITER experimental fusion reactor require the development of special techniques that can accurately and efficiently perform neutronics simulations with minimal human effort. This paper shows the effect of the hybrid Monte Carlo (MC)/deterministic techniques - Consistent Adjoint Driven Importance Sampling (CADIS) and Forward-Weighted CADIS (FW-CADIS) - in enhancing the efficiency of the neutronics modeling of ITER and demonstrates the applicability of coupling these methods with computer-aided-design-based MC. Three quantities were calculated in this analysis: the total nuclear heating in the inboard leg of the toroidal field coils (TFCs), the prompt dose outside the biological shield, and the total neutron and gamma fluxes over a mesh tally covering the entire reactor. The use of FW-CADIS in estimating the nuclear heating in the inboard TFCs resulted in a factor of [approximately]275 increase in the MC figure of merit (FOM) compared with analog MC and a factor of [approximately]9 compared with the traditional methods of variance reduction. By providing a factor of [approximately]21 000 increase in the MC FOM, the radiation dose calculation showed how the CADIS method can be effectively used in the simulation of problems that are practically impossible using analog MC. The total flux calculation demonstrated the ability of FW-CADIS to simultaneously enhance the MC statistical precision throughout the entire ITER geometry. Collectively, these calculations demonstrate the ability of the hybrid techniques to accurately model very challenging shielding problems in reasonable execution times.