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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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.
Walter F. Sommer, Stuart A. Maloy, McIntyre R. Louthan, Gordon J. Willcutt, Phillip D. Ferguson, Michael R. James
Nuclear Technology | Volume 151 | Number 3 | September 2005 | Pages 303-313
Technical Paper | Accelerators | doi.org/10.13182/NT05-A3653
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tungsten rods, slip-clad with Type 304L stainless steel, performed successfully as a spallation neutron source target operating to a peak fluence of ~4 × 1021 p/cm2. The target was used as a neutron source during the Accelerator Production of Tritium (APT) materials irradiation program at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. Tungsten rods of 2.642-mm diameter were slip-fit in Type 304L stainless steel tubes that had an inner diameter of 2.667 mm. The radial gap was filled with helium at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. Los Alamos High Energy Transport (LAHET) calculations suggest a time-averaged peak power deposition in the W of 2.25 kW/cm3. Thermal-hydraulic calculations indicate that the peak centerline W temperature reached 271°C. The LAHET calculations were also used to predict neutron and proton fluxes and spectra for the complex geometry used in the irradiation program. Activation foil sets distributed throughout the experiment were used to determine target neutronics performance as a comparison to the LAHET calculations. Examination of the irradiated target assemblies revealed no significant surface degradation or corrosion on either the Type 304L or the W surfaces. However, it was clear that the irradiation changed material properties because post-proton-irradiation measurements on Type 304L test samples from the APT program demonstrated increases in the yield strength and decreases in the ductility and fracture toughness with increasing dose, and the wrought W rod samples became brittle. Fortunately, the slip-clad target design subjects the materials to very low stress.