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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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.
G. Miley, J. Stubbins, M. Ragheb, C. Choi, B. Adams, G. Magelssen, R. Martin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 889-894
Inertial Confinement Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A22973
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Alternate fuel configurations which enable tritium to be bred within the target itself could provide a significant advantage for ICF reactors. The present work considers a D-fueled target (termed the “AFLINT” concept) for this purpose. A target design is proposed that provides recycle of tritium for manufacture of subsequent targets in a “closed cycle” fashion. 3He is also recycled to obtain optimum burn conditions. For reactor studies, a Hg+1 heavy ion beam driver and a dual liquid-fall reactor chamber are considered. The chamber concept employs a thin inner liquid-fall to absorb the x-rays and target debris while a second outer fall serves to recondense the vaporized liquid, protect the first structural wall against neutron damage, and absorb the radial momentum transfer from the disintegrating inner fall. This design allows a compact geometry (i.e. high power density) while avoiding excessive pumping power requirements for the liquid metal falls.