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Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
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September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
Copper melting behavior at extreme temperatures could inform fusion materials
Using SLAC’s electron camera, researchers recorded timestamps of solid copper atoms (orange) as they melted (yellow) after being blasted with laser heat. This graphic shows how copper atoms changed over a period of several femtoseconds (millionths of a billionth of a second), notated here as fractions of a picosecond. Instead of the predicted collapse, the researchers saw a gradual melting. (Image: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has announced researchers have conducted experiments testing how copper melts under extreme conditions, such as those it might be exposed to in a fusion machine. The results, published in Nature Communications, found that a copper thin film was more resilient to melting than models had predicted, uncovering molecular dynamics that had been missing from calculations.
“These results greatly improve the simulations we use to predict which materials have the best shot at surviving the extreme conditions of future fusion reaction chambers,” said Mianzhen Mo, the SLAC staff scientist who led the research.
Nuclear Plant Instrumentation and Control & Human-Machine Interface Technology (NPIC&HMIT 2025)
Technical Session
Tuesday, June 17, 2025|10:00–11:45AM CDT|Chicago Ballroom E
Session Chair:
Pradeep Ramuhalli
Alternate Chair:
Brendan M. Kochunas
Session Organizer:
Xingang Zhao
To access paper attachments, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
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A Risk-Informed Approach to Trustworthiness Assessment in Digital Twins-Based Autonomous Control
10:00–10:20AM CDT
Nicholas Cittadino (NCSU), Paridhi Athe (NCSU), Linyu Lin (INL), Nam Dinh (NCSU)
Paper
Microreactor Load-Following Reactivity Control with a Second-Order Sliding Mode Control
10:20–10:40AM CDT
Kamal K. Abdulraheem (Univ. Michigan), Sooyoung Choi (Univ. Michigan), Qicang Shen (Univ. Michigan), Brendan Kochunas (Univ. Michigan), Majdi I. Radaideh (Univ. Michigan)
Microreactor Automated Control System Test Bed Digital Architecture for Real-Time, Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation
10:40–11:00AM CDT
Jono McConnell (ORNL), Pradeep Ramuhalli (ORNL), Wesley Williams (ORNL), Andrew Heim (INL)
Predicting Reactor Response to Control Actions for Autonomous Operation Using AI/ML
11:00–11:20AM CDT
Zachery Dahm (Purdue Univ.), Konstantinos Vasili (Purdue Univ.), William Richards (Purdue Univ.), Konstantinos Gkouliaras (Purdue Univ.), Vasileos Theos (Purdue Univ.), Stylianos Chatzidakis (Purdue Univ.)
Development of a Supervisory Control System as a Transition Technology Towards Autonomy in Plant Operations
11:20–11:40AM CDT
L. Fortier (MIT), S. Cetiner (INL)
