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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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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June 2024
Nuclear Technology
May 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Kunihiro Yamamoto, Zensaku Kawara, Tomoaki Kunugi, Takayoshi Norimatsu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | August 2011 | Pages 585-589
IFE Design & Technology | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12446
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To protect from high-energy fluxes caused by nuclear fusion reaction to a first wall of a laser-fusion reactor such as KOYO reactor, the cascade-type falling liquid-metal film flow was proposed as a liquid-wall concept which was one of the reactor chamber cooling and wall protection schemes. In this concept, vapor released by fuel targets and the liquid wall will be condensed on the chamber ceiling which is kept relatively cold. The condensed liquid-metal vapor makes many droplets on the ceiling, and then the droplets will agglomerate, and eventually make the liquid film on the ceiling surface. The liquid-metal film will flow from the ceiling to the liquid first-wall. In this study, the proof-of-principal (POP) experiments and numerical simulations were conducted regarding the liquid-film flow on the ceiling wall. It is found that if the liquid film is formed on the ceiling surface, the liquid flows along the ceiling wall and from the ceiling wall down to the reactor core as long as the vapor is supplied. Moreover, the measurements of the liquid-film thickness were taken by using a confocal laser scanning microscopy, and the effects of the wettability of the wall on the liquid film flow behavior were obtained.