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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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Latest News
Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
Suhas Bhandarkar, Jacob Betcher, Ryan Smith, Bruce Lairson, Travis Ayers
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 70 | Number 2 | August-September 2016 | Pages 332-340
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-218
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Targets for inertial confinement fusion shots on the National Ignition Facility typically use thin polyimide films, ~500 nm, with a coating of 25 nm of aluminum as windows that seal the laser entrance hole. Their role is to contain the hohlraum gas and minimize the extraneous infrared radiation getting in. This is necessary to control precisely the hohlraum thermal environment for layering inside the capsule with solid deuterium-tritium at 18 K. Here, we use our empirical data on the bulging behavior of these foils under various different conditions to develop models to capture the complex viscoelastic behavior of these films at both room and cryogenic temperatures. The constitutive equations derived from these models give us the ability to quantitatively specify the film’s behavior during the fielding of these targets and set the best parameters for new target designs.