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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Nuclear Technology
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.
R. Raman et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 512-517
Experimental Facilities and Nonelectric Applications | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A8954
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experiments in NSTX have now unambiguously demonstrated the coupling of toroidal plasmas produced by the method of transient Coaxial Helicity Injection (CHI) to inductive sustainment and ramp-up of the toroidal current. The coupled discharges have ramped up to 700 kA and transitioned into H-mode with low inductance typical of the type of discharges needed for long-pulse operation, demonstrating the compatibility of the CHI startup method to conventional inductive operation used since the start of tokamak research. The method was first demonstrated on the smaller concept exploration device HIT-II at the University of Washington. These new results that were obtained on a machine built with mainly conventional components and on a size scale closer to a Component Test Facility, demonstrate that CHI is a viable solenoid-free plasma startup method for future STs and Tokamaks.