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The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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
Takeshi Higashijima, Kenjiro Obara, Kiyoshi Shibanuma, Koichi Koizumi, Kazuhiro Kobayashi, Yasuhisa Oya, Wataru Shu, Takumi Hayashi, Masataka Nishi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 731-735
Decontamination and Waste | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22683
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Typical materials and elements such as carbon steel, grease lubricant, electric cable and AC servomotor for the ITER remote maintenance equipment were exposed to a tritiated moisture environment to choose the appropriate materials from the viewpoint of tritium contamination / decontamination and to contribute to the structural and maintenance design of the remote maintenance equipment. After the test samples were exposed, the concentrations of tritium adsorbed on the samples were measured and decontamination experiments using gas purges with three different moisture concentrations were performed. It was found that metallic oxidized layer (Fe3O4 coated on S45C, slightly rusted SS400, rusted Cu of electric connector of the AC servomotor) adsorbs larger amount of tritiated moisture. Grease lubricant was highly contaminated in proportion to the exposed surface area of the pasted layer. Cable jacket (cross-linked polyethylene) was also highly contaminated in spite of hydrophobicity. This is probably because the jacket contains the filler “white carbon (SiO2·nH2O)” which adsorbs large amount of moisture. Internal parts of the AC servomotor were contaminated in the same level as the outer surface, because tritiated moisture goes into the inside through the sealing gap between casing and brackets.