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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
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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February 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
How to talk about nuclear
In your career as a professional in the nuclear community, chances are you will, at some point, be asked (or volunteer) to talk to at least one layperson about the technology you know and love. You might even be asked to present to a whole group of nonnuclear folks, perhaps as a pitch to some company tangential to your company’s business. So, without further ado, let me give you some pointers on the best way to approach this important and surprisingly complicated task.
J. E. Klein, K. L. Shanahan, P. J. Foster, R. A. Baker
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 2 | March 2015 | Pages 424-427
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T45
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A nominal 1500 STP-L Passively Cooled, Electrically heated hydride (PACE) Bed was developed and deployed into tritium service in Savannah River Site (SRS) Tritium Facilities. Process beds to be used for low concentration tritium gas were not fitted with instrumentation to perform the steady-state, flowing gas calorimetric inventory measurement method: In-Bed Accountability (IBA). In some instances, two physical beds, or canisters, were joined together with one process line connection, creating a bed with a total capacity of nominally 3000 STP-L or up to 815 grams of tritium. The IBA detection limit for these beds was estimated to be 9.75 grams tritium. After deployment of these low tritium beds, the need arose to estimate tritium inventories of these beds without installation of IBA instrumentation. Two methods have been developed to estimate the tritium inventory of these low tritium content beds. The first approach assumes the bed is half-full and uses a gas composition measurement to estimate the tritium inventory and uncertainty. The second approach utilizes the bed’s hydride material pressure-composition-temperature (PCT) properties and a gas composition measurement to reduce the uncertainty in the calculated bed inventory.