ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
N. Hosogane, H. Ninomiya, M. Matsukawa, T. Ando, Y. Neyatani, H. Horiike, S. Sakurai, K. Masaki, M. Yamamoto, K. Kodama, T. Sasajima, T. Terakado, S. Ohmori, Y. Ohmori, J. Okano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 42 | Number 2 | September-November 2002 | Pages 368-385
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A234
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The design of the JT-60U tokamak, the configuration of the coil power supplies, and the operational experiences gained to date are reviewed. JT-60U is a large tokamak upgraded from the original JT-60 in order to obtain high plasma current, large plasma volume, and highly elongated divertor configurations. All components inside the toroidal magnetic field coils, such as vacuum vessel, poloidal magnetic field coils, divertor, etc., were modified. Various technologies and ideas were introduced to develop these components; for example, a multi-arc double skin wall structure for the vacuum vessel and a functional poloidal magnetic field coil system with taps for obtaining various plasma configurations. Furthermore, boron-carbide coated carbon fiber composite (CFC) tiles were used as divertor tiles to reduce erosion of carbon-base tiles. Later, a semiclosed divertor with pumps, for which cryo-panels originally used for NBI units were converted, was installed in the replacement of the open divertor. These development and operational results provide data for future tokamaks. Major failures experienced in the long operational period of JT-60U, such as water leakage from the toroidal magnetic field coil, fracture of carbon tiles, and breakdown of a filter capacitor, are described. As a maintenance issue for tokamaks using deuterium fueling gas, a method for reducing radiation exposure of in-vessel workers is described.