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Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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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.
J. Jayaraj, K. Thyagarajan, C. Mallika, U. Kamachi Mudali
Nuclear Technology | Volume 191 | Number 1 | July 2015 | Pages 58-70
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-90
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Long-term corrosion testing of a mock-up dissolver vessel to be employed in the aqueous reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels of fast breeder reactors has been initiated. In this work, a Zircaloy-4 (Zr-4) mock-up dissolver vessel was used as the testing facility to evaluate the corrosion rate of several candidate materials based on zirconium and titanium in the boiling and vapor phases of simulated dissolver solution (SDS) comprising fission and corrosion product ions in 11.5 M nitric acid. Several campaigns of 100, 250, 500, 1000, and 2500 h of operation were completed. The corrosion rates of the candidate materials are expressed both in micrometers per year (μm/yr) and mils per year (mils/yr). Zirconium-702, Zr-4, autoclaved Zr-4, and commercial pure titanium (CP-Ti) exhibited low corrosion rates of 0.08 to 0.23 μm/yr (0.003 to 0.009 mils/yr) in the as-received and welded conditions exposed to the boiling liquid phase of the dissolver solution for 2500 h. Whereas the CP-Ti and CP-Ti weld exhibited marginally higher corrosion rates of 1.0 μm/yr (0.04 mils/yr) and 1.9 μm/yr (0.075 mils/yr), respectively, in the vapor phase of the dissolver solution, the lowest corrosion rate of 0.08 μm/yr (0.003 mils/yr) was obtained for the autoclaved Zr-4 sample exposed to boiling SDS. Scanning electron microscope investigations did not reveal any corrosion attack for the titanium and zirconium samples. Laser Raman spectroscopic analysis confirmed that the origins of passivity of zirconium and titanium samples were due to the formation of ZrO2 and TiO2, respectively. However, the CP-Ti/AISI Type 304L stainless steel (SS 304L) and Zr-4/SS 304L dissimilar welds had undergone severe corrosion. Visual inspection of the Zr-4 dissolver vessel revealed no corrosion attack after operation for 2500 h. The results of this 2500-h campaign would serve as the baseline data for the analysis of future long-term campaigns.
