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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Martin Edelmann, Walter Baumann, Alfred Bertram, Günter Kussmaul, Walter Väth
Nuclear Technology | Volume 107 | Number 1 | July 1994 | Pages 3-14
Technical Paper | Special on ANP ’92 Conference / Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT94-A34993
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A device for increasing the thermal expansion effect of control rod drive lines on negative reactivity feedback in fast reactors has been developed. The enhanced thermal expansion of this device can be utilized for both passive rod drop and forced insertion of absorbers in unprotected transients, e.g., unprotected loss of flow (ULOF). In this way, the reactor is automatically brought into a permanently subcritical state, and temperatures are kept well below the boiling point of the coolant. A prototype of such a device called ATHENa (German: Shutdown by THermal Expansion of Na) has been manufactured and will be tested. The principle, design features, and thermal properties of ATHENa are presented, as well as results of reactor dynamics calculations of ULOF accidents for the European Fast Reactor with enhanced thermal expansion control rod drive lines.
