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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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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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.
L. G. Miller, J. M. Beeston, P. Y. Hsu, B. L. Harris
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 427-432
Materials Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22901
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The lifetime of hollow beryllium pebbles in a hybrid fusion blanket was estimated using the existing radiation damage data base. The ductility of the irradiated beryllium at 400 to 500°C was estimated as ∼3%, and the loading stresses produced a strain of <0.3%. The failure analysis was based on the maximum stress theory. The principal stresses calculated were thermal and swelling. The estimated lifetimes for beryllium pebbles were <2 yr for those near the first wall of the blanket, >2 yr for those near the center, and >9 yr for those near the back wall. An overall average lifetime of 2.6 yr was calculated for the hollow beryllium pebbles. The snap-ring fuel form, not considered in this analysis, is expected to give longer beryllium lifetimes, provided stress concentration effects are not present.
