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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS 2025)
May 4–8, 2025
Huntsville, AL|Huntsville Marriott and the Space & Rocket Center
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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
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U.S. nuclear capacity factors: Stability and energy dominance
Nuclear generation has inertia. Massive spinning turbines keep electricity flowing during grid disturbances. But nuclear generation also has a kind of inertia that isn’t governed by the laws of motion.
Starting—and then finishing—a power reactor construction project requires significant upfront effort and money, but once built a reactor can run for decades. Capacity factors of U.S. reactors have remained near 90 percent since the turn of the century, but it took more than a decade of improvements to reach that steady state. The payoff for nuclear investments is long-term and reliable.
A. Wojenski, K. Pozniak, G. Kasprowicz, W. Zabolotny, A. Byszuk, P. Zienkiewicz, M. Chernyshova, T. Czarski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 69 | Number 3 | May 2016 | Pages 595-604
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-189
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work refers to the measurement system for soft-X-ray radiation (SXR) diagnostics using gaseous electron multiplier (GEM) detectors. In terms of tokamak plasma parameter control and optimization, it is important to determine the level of SXR generated by plasma. This work describes the whole system including the GEM detector, electronic modules, and data acquisition (DAQ) path. The structure of the DAQ system is presented in terms of hardware, firmware, and software architecture. The currently developed hardware allows sampling of the GEM detector signals with 125-MHz frequency and real-time field-programmable gate array (FPGA) processing. It enables processing of all events generated by the highest possible photon flux for the GEM detector. The developed FPGA firmware registers digitized GEM detector signals with a global trigger up to 625 kHz with all 64 channels sampling simultaneously and stores them in the local memory. Therefore, it makes it possible to obtain the photon energy spectra at high photon flux (105 to 106 counts · mm−2 · s−1) in online acquisition mode. The software block performs a DAQ system start-up configuration and provides the user interface. The first preliminary results of laboratory tests are also presented.
