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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
June 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Michael Rieth, Jens Reister, Bernhard Dafferner, Siegfried Baumgärtner
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 1 | January 2012 | Pages 381-384
Materials | Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-1T3
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Many divertor design studies for future fusion reactors rely on helium gas cooling. In these concepts, pressurized tubes or channels had to be operated at maximum temperatures between 1000 °C and 1300 °C while the lowest operating temperature is preset by the coolant inlet or by specific start-up and maintenance conditions. At such extreme temperature regimes, the only reduced activation material that would provide enough strength, paired with the necessary heat conductivity, is tungsten. Therefore, various tungsten materials and alloys are often publicized as candidate material for structural divertor applications.However, there are also clear limitations. Therefore, an intensive study on the influence of microstructure and chemical composition on the fracture behavior of industrially produced tungsten materials has been perfomed. This paper reviews the results and some other relevant properties of tungsten materials with respect to possible applications for structural divertor parts. Drawbacks and possible alternatives are discussed.
