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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott 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
Latest News
BREAKING NEWS: Trump issues executive orders to overhaul nuclear industry
The Trump administration issued four executive orders today aimed at boosting domestic nuclear deployment ahead of significant growth in projected energy demand in the coming decades.
During a live signing in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump called nuclear “a hot industry,” adding, “It’s a brilliant industry. [But] you’ve got to do it right. It’s become very safe and environmental.”
J.-L. Duchateau, M. Coatanea, B. Lacroix, S. Nicollet, D. Ciazynski, P. Bayetti
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 4 | November 2013 | Pages 705-710
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A24089
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The quench of one of the ITER magnet systems is an irreversible transition of the conductor from superconducting to normal resistive state. The normal zone propagates along the cable-in-conduit conductor, dissipating a large power. The detection has to be fast enough (1 to 2 s) to initiate the dumping of the magnetic energy and avoid irreversible damage of the systems.The experience of CEA is based on the operation of the superconducting tokamak Tore Supra for more than 20 years. In support of ITER, CEA was also very involved in quench detection investigations during these past 3 years.The primary quench detection in ITER is based on voltage detection, the most rapid detection. The very magnetically disturbed environment during a plasma scenario makes the voltage detection particularly difficult, inducing large inductive components across the pulsed coils (10 kV) or coil subcomponents. Voltage compensations therefore have to be designed to discriminate the resistive voltage associated with the quench.A secondary detection based on a thermohydraulic signals system also has to be investigated to protect the environment in case of a nondetected quench, especially for the largest ITER system, which is the toroidal field system with a stored energy of 40 GJ.