ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Feb 2026
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2026
Nuclear Technology
January 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
M. Nieto, D. N. Ruzic, J. P. Allain
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 44 | Number 1 | July 2003 | Pages 232-236
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Divertor and Plasma-Facing Components | doi.org/10.13182/FST03-A339
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Flowing Liquid Surface Retention Experiment (FLIRE) has been built and designed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to provide fundamental experimental data on the retention and pumping of He, H and other species in flowing liquid surfaces. These measurements are critical to the development of advanced plasma-facing components (PFCs) that apply flowing liquid metals to mitigate high heat loads encountered in the divertor region of next-step fusion reactors. The FLIRE facility currently uses an ion beam source, which injects ions into a flowing stream of liquid lithium. Its design allows the liquid lithium to flow between two vacuum chambers that become isolated from each other when the lithium flows. Recent results show retention of helium in flowing liquid lithium at 250-300 °C to be of the order 10-4 and diffusivities of 10-4 to 10-3 cm2/sec.