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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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 Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
Jungchung Jung
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 1 | July 1983 | Pages 144-163
Technical Paper | Fusion Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22781
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An in-depth nuclear analysis has been performed for WILDCAT that is a conceptual design of a commercial tokamak reactor utilizing a catalyzed deuterium-deuterium (D-D) fusion fuel cycle. Comparisons are made with the deuterium-tritium-fueled STARFIRE design in order to identify the salient features of D-D tokamak reactor designs. Since WILDCAT does not have to breed tritium, the blanket and shield system can be optimized to have a thinner inboard extent (∼0.8 versus 1.2 m for STARFIRE) leading to more efficient use of the toroidal field. The nonbreeding blanket concept of WILDCAT can also be utilized for substantial enhancement of the system energy multiplication (2.02 versus 1.14). These benefits help to overcome the reduced fusion reactivities and lead to a 60% more efficient blanket in terms of power generation. The outboard blanket and shield'system has been designed for personnel access within 24 h after reactor shutdown and uses as much as possible materials that are not resource limited and that have lower activation. Ninety percent of the materials in WILDCAT can be recycled within 50 yr after their discharge from the reactor.
