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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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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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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.
S.B. Nickerson, K. Penfold, R.F. Gerdingh, D.P. Dautovich
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 106-111
Tritium | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22852
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The first generation fusion reactors and the fusion experiments leading up to them will burn deuterium-tritium fuel. The presence of tritium will require monitoring for reasons of health and safety, and for process control. This paper presents the tritium monitoring requirements of fusion and gives a summary of the status of research. These requirements are similar to those of Ontario Hydro which, because of tritium in the moderator and heat transport water of their CANDU heavy water nuclear reactors, has gained much practical experience in the monitoring of tritium for health and safety reasons. This experience and Ontario Hydro's future tritium monitoring plans are discussed, followed by some tritium monitoring R&D suggestions.
