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Division Spotlight
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.
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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Proving DRACO will deliver
The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
Guang-Hong Lu, Long Cheng, Kameel Arshad, Yue Yuan, Jun Wang, Shaoyang Qin, Ying Zhang, Kaigui Zhu, Guang-Nan Luo, Haishan Zhou, Bo Li, Jiefeng Wu, Bo Wang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 71 | Number 2 | February 2017 | Pages 177-186
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST16-115
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The linear plasma device Simulator for Tokamak Edge Plasma (STEP) has been constructed at Beihang University, Beijing, to study plasma-material interactions (PMIs) for fusion reactor applications. The device can produce versatile low-energy and high flux plasma in laboratory experiments and is highly cost-effective to replicate the fusion-relevant plasma environment to study PMI processes. The attractive feature of the device is its compact design with a main body dimension of 1.5 × 1.5 × 0.8 m3 including the plasma source, vacuum chamber, magnetic coils, and diagnostics. A longitudinal magnetic field of up to 0.26 T is used to confine the plasma onto the target in an ~1-m-long vacuum tube. It can produce a steady-state plasma of low impinging ion energy of <100 eV, ion flux up to 1022 m−2 · s−1, and fluence of >1026 m−2 per exposure. Various plasma species such as hydrogen, deuterium, helium, and nitrogen can be produced to manipulate PMI processes for different target grades. The STEP device provides an experimental platform to improve the understanding of PMIs, validate computational simulation results, and build a database of fusion material performance and lifetime.