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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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Latest News
Why should safeguards by design be a global effort?
Jeremy Whitlock
I can’t think of a more exciting time to be working in nuclear, with the diversity of advanced reactor development and increasing global support for nuclear in sustainable energy planning. But we can’t lose sight of the need to plan for efficient international safeguards at the same time.
Global nuclear deployment has been underpinned since 1970 by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), making it a key customer requirement for governments to demonstrate unequivocally that the technology is not being misused for weapons development.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has helped verify this commitment for more than 50 years, but it has never safeguarded many of the advanced reactors (and related fuel cycle processes) being developed today.
F. Genco, A. Hassanein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 339-343
Materials Development & Plasma-Material Interactions | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12376
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Off normal operating conditions resulting from plasma instabilities such as disruptions, edge-localized modes (ELM), and vertical displacement events (VDE) in tokamaks are to be expected with the potential of high energy deposition on plasma facing components (PFC). This high-energy dump in short duration, will result in extremely high temperatures of the PFC leading to melting and evaporation of the surfaces. Erosion resulting from these processes is life-limiting for the PFC as well as potential plasma contamination and degradation of performance. A comprehensive understanding based on the interplay of all physical processes during plasma instabilities on the divertor plate is necessary in order to improve reliability and characterize the performance of this key component. A novel particle-in-cell (PIC) technique has been developed and integrated into the existing HEIGHTS package in order to verify and have another perspective in assessing these problems.The HEIGHTS multi-dimensional integrated models take into account different stages of the plasma material interaction and its evolution along time. The extent of the damage will essentially depend on the intensity and duration of energy deposited on PFC. Both bulk and surface damages can take place depending on these parameters. For this reason different deposition times have been considered ranging from several microseconds to tens of milliseconds in order to provide comprehensive evolution of material erosion and transport. Comparison of the newly implemented PIC methods with current HEIGHTS existing models are discussed.