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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
R.J. Thome, R.D. Pillsbury, Jr., W.R. Mann
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 453-458
Blanket and First Wall Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22905
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The rapid decay of magnetic flux during a plasma disruption induces voltages, currents, and Lorentz loadings in nearby electrically-conducting material. Present designs employ toroidal shells or shell segments near the plasma. These shells are divided into sectors for assembly and maintenance considerations, but may have toroidally-continuous conducting paths due to the need for vacuum boundaries. Voltages induced across sector gaps may initiate arcing and subsequent material damage. In addition, induced eddy currents in the shells can interact with the toroidal field and generate large net torques on a sector. A finite element model was used to estimate the induced sector gap voltages and net overturning moments following a 10 ms disruption. The number of shells, toroidal continuity, resistivity, and shell thicknesses were varied. Results are presented that show the effects of these changes on the sector gap voltages and induced loads.
