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The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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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
Hitoshi Hanada, Yuji Hatano, Kanetsugu Isobe, Kan Sakamoto, Masayasu Sugisaki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 915-918
Material Interaction and Permeation | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22718
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The hydrogen distribution in the oxidized Zircaloy-2 was related to its microsturcuture by tritium microautoradiography based on a cathodic tritium charging method. It was found out that hydrogen atoms were concentrated in the intermetallic precipitates such as Zr(Fe,Cr)2 and Zr2(Fe,Ni) existing in the oxide film, and on the grain boundary of zirconium matrix. It was also found out that hydrogen atoms were scarcely present in the thin metallic region adjacent to the oxide layer, the thickness of which was about 10–15 µm.
