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.
Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
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.
Koichi Maki, Chikara Konno, Fujio Maekawa, Hiroshi Maekawa, Katsumi Hayashi, Kobun Yamada
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 36 | Number 1 | July 1999 | Pages 52-61
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A91
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In traditional shielding design, thicknesses of shieldings have been determined so that calculated shielding properties multiplied by safety factors do not exceed design limits. A shielding design margin is defined for the safety factors that are included in the estimated shielding thicknesses in the design process. Sensitivities of the shielding design margin to the fusion reactor scale and amount of material are examined for a typical fusion experimental reactor such as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). From these investigations, supposing the shielding design margin can be made smaller by up to half the typical value of 3 used in a reactor, the amount of toroidal coil, transformer coil, and other torus component materials can be reduced by 1.5, 0.7, and 0.7%, respectively. If one includes a reactor building and accessory facilities that are not affected by the shielding design margin, the whole reactor material reduction becomes 0.55%. Since reactor cost is assumed to be proportional to the amount of material, the 0.55% reduction may be worth $55 million when the estimated price of the reactor is assumed to be $10 billion.