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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
June 15–18, 2025
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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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
G.A. Esteban, F. Legarda, L.A. Sedano, A. Perujo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 948-953
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-A22725
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An accurate and particular description of isotope effects in hydrogen transport within structural martensitic steels is highly needed in nuclear fusion technology in order to describe the tritium-material interaction on the basis of the properties of the non-radioactive hydrogen isotopes (protium and deuterium). As a result, tritium transport investigation becomes technologically more feasible because a cost-effective radioactive device is not mandatory. Additionally, a precise isotopic description allows differentiating the behaviour of the fuel-components deuterium and tritium within the blanket structures in reactor operation conditions. A time-dependent gas-phase isovolumetric desorption technique has been used to evaluate the isotopic effects in the diffusive transport parameters of hydrogen in an 8% CrWVTa reduced activation martensitic steel in the temperatures range 423 to 892 K and driving pressures from 4·104 to 1·105 Pa. Experiments have been run with both protium and deuterium obtaining their respective transport parameters diffusivity (D), Sieverts' constant (Ks), permeability (Φ), the trap site density (ηt) and the trapping activation energy (Et).
