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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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Latest News
IAEA again raises global nuclear power projections
Noting recent momentum behind nuclear power, the International Atomic Energy Agency has revised up its projections for the expansion of nuclear power, estimating that global nuclear operational capacity will more than double by 2050—reaching 2.6 times the 2024 level—with small modular reactors expected to play a pivotal role in this high-case scenario.
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi announced the new projections, contained in the annual report Energy, Electricity, and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050 at the 69th IAEA General Conference in Vienna.
In the report’s high-case scenario, nuclear electrical generating capacity is projected to increase to from 377 GW at the end of 2024 to 992 GW by 2050. In a low-case scenario, capacity rises 50 percent, compared with 2024, to 561 GW. SMRs are projected to account for 24 percent of the new capacity added in the high case and for 5 percent in the low case.
Gordana Vukovic, Michael L. Corradini
Nuclear Technology | Volume 115 | Number 1 | July 1996 | Pages 46-60
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35274
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To investigate liquid-metal (fuel)/water (coolant) interactions, a vertical shock tube has been designed and constructed. A series of tests was conducted with gallium, indium, lead, and tin as the fuel materials at either low” (Tf ∼ 300°C) or “high” fuel temperature (Tf ∼ 600°C), with water at room temperature (low Tc) and in the range of Tc = 56 to 67°C (high Tc), and with driving pressures from 0.25 to 1.22 MPa. These materials were tested to determine their compatibility for potential use in liquid-metal divertor systems for fusion power plants. The increase in fuel and water temperature, as well as the increase of driving pressure, caused more energetic interactions to occur. High Tf tin and lead interactions, and high Tf and Tc gallium and indium interactions were the most energetic. Stronger interactions produced finer debris fragments. In high Tf gallium and indium interactions, small superficial oxidation was observed. For the first two pulses, larger ratios of compression- (compression of expansion vessel gas) to-expansion work correspond to the experiments with higher fuel and coolant temperatures. For the first pulse, only work ratio values of the most energetic experiments are larger than those of isothermal experiments. Consequently, for such experiments, the impulse values of second pulses are the largest. Higher values of the conversion ratio for the first pulse correspond to more energetic interactions. Even for the most energetic experiments, the conversion ratio is no higher than 1.2%, and no more than 15% (or a few millimetres-thick surface layer) of the initially loaded fuel participated in the interaction, assuming equal initial volumes of fuel and coolant.
