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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.
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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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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Gen Chen, Yanping Zhao, Yuzhou Mao, Shuai Yuan, Gaowei Zheng, Fen Zheng, Zhongxin He, Shenglin Yu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 61 | Number 4 | May 2012 | Pages 301-308
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST61-301
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) heating has been used in tokamaks as one of the most successful auxiliary heating tools and has been adopted in EAST. To ensure the steady operation of the ICRF heating system in EAST, the research and development of the fast ferrite tuner (FFT), which aimed to achieve real-time impedance matching of transmitter to antenna, has been carried out. The design and analysis of the FFT is an iterative process where multiple parameters have to be taken into account. The dimensions of the FFT should be chosen as a compromise between relative equivalent electrical length and high-power performance by using the finite element method and numerous computer simulations. The first prototype aimed at achieving a response time of milliseconds and operation with a peak power of 300 kW, which will inform us about the radio-frequency and the high-power performance of such a ferrite tuner. The bench test results have demonstrated that the FFT with a tuning speed of [approximately]200 ms is faster than the traditional methods, and it can be one of the candidates for the real-time impedance matching of the ICRF heating system in EAST. The high-power performance of the FFT should be tested in the EAST 2012 spring campaign. To be fit for the real-time impedance matching for ICRF heating experiments, development of a new prototype, which aims at a response time of 0.5 ms, an insertion loss of <1%, and operation with a peak power of 1.5 MW, is in progress.