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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
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
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Blair P. Bromley
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 546-560
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-851
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A study of computational/analytical neutronics and heat transfer has been carried out for different types of gas-cooled fuel bundle lattices that could be used for the sub-critical fertile/fissionable blanket of a cylindrical-geometry hybrid fusion-fission reactor (HFFR) with thorium-based fuels. The HFFR concept envisioned is one with a simple cylindrical geometry, using an anticipated variant of a magnetic mirror to confine a deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion plasma. The annular-cylindrical blanket is approximately 10 meters long and 2 meters thick, and is a repeating lattice of pressure tubes filled with 0.5-meter fuel bundles that are made of (233U,Th)O2, and refuelled continuously on-line, sharing technological features with pressure-tube heavy water reactors (PT-HWR) and the Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) in the U.K.. With a 2-meter thick blanket, the average fissile content in the blanket needs to be at least 2.5 wt% in order for the HFFR system to be self-sustaining in power.