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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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Christmas Night
Twas the night before Christmas when all through the houseNo electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged in by the chimney with careWith the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
Pooran Joshi, Tolga Aytug, Shannon Mahurin, Richard Mayes, Sacit Cetiner, Hong Wang, Ivan Kravchenko, Yanwen Zhang, Anton Ievlev, Lauren Nuckols, Roger Kisner (ORNL)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 1416-1424
Successful ubiquitous deployment of advanced reactors will depend to a large extent on the development of high-performance materials and sensors. Recently, there has been increasing interest in advanced reactors operating at very high temperatures (greater than 700 °C) and using molten salts as the primary coolant. In such reactor systems, temperature and pressure measurements are conducted using standard legacy thermocouples and pressure measurement technologies, both of which suffer from resolution issues, inaccuracies, and drift under harsh operating temperature and radiation conditions. We report on the structural, electrical, and mechanical characteristics of SiC materials and devices for the development of an integrated monolithic sensor unit capable of simultaneously monitoring temperature, pressure and flow in molten salt reactors, while at the same time exhibiting significant improvements in resolution, accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio. Wide bandgap and chemical inertness of SiC make it suitable for harsh environment sensor applications. We report on the development of a SiC pressure sensor exploiting its piezoresistive properties. Attempts have been made to fabricate thermally stable pressure sensor through doping induced high gauge factor. Both n-type and p-type SiC wafers, implanted and in-situ doped, have been investigated in the present study to analyze the impact of dopant type and concentration on the piezoresistive characteristics. The microstructure and composition of SiC samples have been analyzed by AFM, XRD, SIMS, and RBS techniques. The electrical conductivity of the SiC samples has been measured by 4-point probe technique. The mechanical measurements are being conducted on SiC beams with photolithographically defined surface piezoresistors. Temperature dependent electrical properties of the doped SiC sensors are also being investigated to develop high performance sensors that can operate at temperatures beyond the limits of conventional silicon CMOS materials and devices.