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Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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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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 Newbert, A Haigh, G Atkins
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 1552-1557
Tritium Waste Management and Discharge Control | Proceedings of the Fifth Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology In Fission, Fusion, and Isotopic Applications Belgirate, Italy May 28-June 3, 1995 | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30633
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In November 1991 over 40TBq of tritium was introduced into the JET machine for the first tritium experiment (PTE). This tritium combined with neutron activated material forms the basis of radioactive waste at JET. In order to satisfy regulatory authorities and the operators of the repository to which JET consigns its radioactive waste, JET estimates the level of tritium in each consignment of waste removed from the site.Fig 1: Inside the torusAll types of JET radioactive wastes are received for disposal at the Waste Handling Facility (WHF) which features a waste sorting and sampling station, a glove box, a compactor, and packaging and transfer systems. The WHF is operated as a contamination control area with monitored tritium discharges. The waste received includes solid, eg housekeeping waste, machine components and vessel wall tiles; and liquid, eg water, oils and freon containing a unique cocktail of radionuclides consisting of tritium as a contaminant and neutron activated material. The tritium contamination may be in the form of gas, tritiated vapour or tritiated particulate with a specific activity up to 2.5MBq/g. The two main types of tritium monitors used are linuid scintillation counters and ionisation chambers, and samples of various components and materials have now been assessed for tritium. The results so far indicate a widespread of tritium levels from 2Bq/g for cold gas transfer lines to 200kBq/g for in-vessel tiles. General soft housekeeping waste is assessed by a sniffing technique which has a limit of detection corresponding to 120Bq/g. The prospect of the introduction of more tritium during future tritium operations has led to the investigation of improved methods of tritium measurement and of component detritiation to facilitate future waste disposal.
