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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Proving DRACO will deliver
The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
Masaru Takagi, Robert Cook, Richard Stephens, Jane Gibson, Sally Paguio
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 38 | Number 1 | July 2000 | Pages 50-53
Technical Paper | Thirteenth Target Fabrication Specialists’ Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST00-A36115
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Poly(α-methylstyrene) (PαMS) mandrel precursors (a fluorobenzene solution of PαMS surrounding a water core) must be agitated to center the core. The initially fluid PαMS solution stiffens as the organic solvent is extracted, and it eventually becomes brittle; a collision with a stirring propeller will either dent or crack the surface. Dried mandrels often exhibit dents on the surface or cracks in the wall that may result from such collisions. We have studied the deformation relaxation rate of mandrel precursors as a function of curing time. We have found a point in the cure at which the core centering process has stopped but permanent denting has not started, and have found a simple test for this condition. We can use this information to produce highly spherical plastic mandrels by controlling propeller speed as a function of time.