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This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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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Latest News
Aalo and Idaho Falls Power reach agreement on potential microreactor siting
Microreactor developer Aalo Atomics municipal electric utility Idaho Falls Power have developed a memorandum of understanding that could lead to the siting of seven sodium-cooled microreactors and a power purchase agreement for Idaho Falls.
Raymond S. Troy, Robert V. Tompson, Tushar K. Ghosh, Sudarshan K. Loyalka, Nidia C. Gallego
Nuclear Technology | Volume 189 | Number 3 | March 2015 | Pages 241-257
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-25
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Characterization of graphite particles (dust) produced by abrasion that would occur in a pebble bed reactor is of interest for reasons of safety, operation, and maintenance. To better understand this abrasion and particle generation, we have built a test apparatus to produce particles by sliding abrasion in a 1% to 5% relative humidity air environment. We have used a commercial-grade graphite in our experiments and have generated size distributions for the abraded particles. We have also fit lognormal functions to those size distributions (for use in computer codes); determined particle shapes; measured temperature and humidity during the tests; measured and calculated wear rates; and measured the surface roughness of both pretest and posttest samples, particle surface areas, pore volumes, and pore volume distributions of particles produced during abrasion of graphite surfaces under different loadings and sliding speeds. The experiments showed that as loading (analogous to pebble depth in the reactor) and sliding speed increase, so do the wear rates and numbers of particles produced, while surface roughness decreases, increases, and then decreases. Brunauer-Emmett-Teller measurements show that abrasion increases surface area from 0.583 m2/g in the bulk material to 555 m2/g in material abraded at high loading and high sliding speed. Wear rates range from 0.005 to 0.991 g/m per contact site. The size of the particles observed was <4000 nm. In all, our research shows that pebble abrasion is a complex process that is not constant during operation and thus should be considered for future work.