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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
B. P. Chock, T. B. Jones, D. R. Harding
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 70 | Number 2 | August-September 2016 | Pages 206-218
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-215
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The electric-field–assembly technique proposed for making fusion targets uses the electrical force from dielectrophoresis and electrowetting-on-dielectric phenomena to form droplets of oil and water, combine them into an emulsion, and then center one phase inside the surrounding immiscible phase. Forming the water droplet becomes more problematic with the addition of a surfactant, which is needed to stabilize an oil-in-water emulsion. The effect of increasing the amount of surfactant on the droplet-dispensing process is presented, and a mechanism for this behavior is provided.
Increasing the surfactant concentration slows the rate at which surfactant-water droplets are dispensed and increases the variability in the volume of successive droplets. This effect becomes more pronounced near the critical micelle concentration (CMC). Increasing the applied electric field (V > 75 Vrms) improves the dispensing process but decreases the lifetime of the dielectric coatings (for V > 125 Vrms). The stronger electric field forces surfactant molecules to aggregate at the edges of the water droplet where the electrical forces are the greatest. The difficulty of separating a surfactant-laden droplet from the bulk fluid is attributed to the reduced liquid-air surface tension, the lower liquid-substrate surface energy, and a higher disjoining pressure in the thin-film membrane attaching the droplet to the bulk fluid.
The parameters studied include the surfactant concentration (Silwet L-77) from 0 to 0.025 wt% (2.5× the CMC limit), the voltage from 75 to 150 Vrms, and the frequency from 0.1 to 10 kHz.
