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 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
Second round of Launch Pad selections includes eight newcomers
The National Reactor Innovation Center at Idaho National Laboratory has announced 13 project selections across 12 companies for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, a Department of Energy–led program that integrates reactor and fuel facility authorization, testing, and deployment support for private nuclear developers.
The Launch Pad emerged from the Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program.
According to INL, projects selected include reactor development and nuclear fuel cycle advancements, including fabrication, enrichment, and conversion technologies.
Yasufumi Tanaka, Heun Tae Lee, Yoshio Ueda, Masayoshi Nagata, Yusuke Kikuchi, Satoshi Suzuki, Yohji Seki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 2 | September 2015 | Pages 433-437
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-109
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this study, surface damaged W monoblocks (melting and cracking) by a pulsed plasma gun and an e-beam devices were exposed to cyclic heat loads (simulating normal heat loads and slow transients) and pulsed heat loads (simulating ELMs) to observe the effects of surface damage on surface erosion and heat removal capability. Heat load tests simulating the normal heat load (10 MW/m2, 10 sec, 300 cycles) and the slow transient (~20 MW/m2, 10 sec, 300 cycles) were performed by the e-beam. The surface morphology changes after the heat load tests were observed using laser scanning microscopy and FE-SEM. After e-beam irradiation of ~20 MW/m2, the longitudinal cracks crossing over entire monoblocks appeared on the surfaces of all monoblocks. Recrystallization and additional crack formation were also observed on the surface. However, there was no significant change of heat removal capability. In the additional pulsed heat load test, the energy fluence of 0.042-0.30MJ/m2 was applied with pulse numbers of 103 and 104.The surface morphology changes after laser irradiation were observed using laser scanning microscope. After laser irradiation, the grain ejection occurred above a certain energy fluence (~25 % of melting threshold).