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Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
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Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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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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
Satoshi Fukada, Makoto Ueda, Takaaki Izumi, Go Wu, Kazunari Katayama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 4 | May 2012 | Pages 282-289
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-A13581
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This research is performed to determine how gaseous impurities affect the evacuation of tritium from a fusion reactor chamber by using a cryosorption pump. The amounts of H2O and CH4 remaining on activated carbon during repeated cycles between adsorption for evacuation and desorption for regeneration are related to the partial pressures of the H2O and CH4 and to temperature and are correlated in terms of Henry's law. It is experimentally investigated how the impurities remaining on the activated carbon after rough evacuation by elevating the temperature affect the adsorption of H2 and He at cryogenic temperature. The amount of CH4 remaining on activated carbon is smaller than that of H2O, and it was found that the former's effect is comparatively smaller than the latter's. Discussion is made based on the surface coverage and pore distribution that are determined by the BET measurement. An important conclusion is that the bulk of the H2O and CH4 can be released from activated carbon by heating to 373 K.
