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Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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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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Latest News
First astatine-labeled compound shipped in the U.S.
The Department of Energy’s National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) on March 31 announced the successful long-distance shipment in the United States of a biologically active compound labeled with the medical radioisotope astatine-211 (At-211). Because previous shipments have included only the “bare” isotope, the NIDC has described the development as “unleashing medical innovation.”
Amir Ali, Edward Blandford, Youho Lee (Univ of New Mexico), Khalid Hattar (SNL), Hyun-Gil Kim, Dong Jun Park (KAERI)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 428-439
The concept of coating the currently used nuclear fuel cladding (zirconium-based alloy) with an oxidation preventive layer could be a solution to suppress undesirable fast reaction kinetics with high-temperature steam. Critical Heat Flux (CHF) is a thermal-hydraulic performance parameter to investigate for these new cladding concepts including Cr-coated Zirc-based cladding. The exposure of coated Zirc-based cladding for an extensive period inside the reactor to severe conditions of high pressure and temperature, water chemistry, and irradiation environment could result in structure and property changes. These changes would have an impact on the heat transfer performance parameters including CHF. Surface wettability analysis, including contact angle (?) and surface roughness (Ra), are simple surface measurements used in the literature to predict changes in the pool boiling heat transfer coefficient and CHF. This work presents the effects of ion irradiation on surface wettability measurements and predicted pool boiling CHF for bare Zirc-4, and multiple Cr-coated Zirc-based samples of different coating thicknesses (5 - 30 ?m). The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images show no significant surface damages due to ion irradiation. The ion irradiation shows no effects on the measured surface roughness for all samples. Results show that decreasing the Cr-coating thickness results in a higher surface wettability pre- and post- ion irradiation. The irradiated Cr-coated surfaces have higher measured contact angle compared to the unirradiated surfaces. The unpolished coated Zirc samples have larger measured surface roughness compared to the polished surfaces pre- and post- ion irradiation. The predicted pool boiling CHF using the contact angle measurements implemented in Kandlikar model for unirradiated samples is higher than those for irradiated samples.