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Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Osamu Mitarai, Katsunori Muraoka
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 36 | Number 2 | September 1999 | Pages 194-211
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A102
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The consequence of the failure effect of burn control diagnostic systems, such as neutron diagnostics, bolometers, electron cyclotron emission power loss diagnostics, interferometer, and lost alpha detector, on ignited operation has been analyzed, and the fail-safe operation in a tokamak fusion reactor including the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) has been considered. Because the failure of the neutron diagnostic system for fusion power measurement leads to a fusion power surge for the simple control algorithm, the fail-safe control algorithm has been introduced to avoid this problem. As failure of the power loss measurement such as the bolometer system terminates the ignition, then it is less problematic. The effect of the interferometer fringe counting error on the ignited operation is not simple, as just mentioned, and a lost alpha detector can be removed from the feedback system using the preset value.