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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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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Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
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.
D. E. Post, R. Mattas
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 8 | Number 1 | July 1985 | Pages 779-790
Plasma Heating, Impurity Control, and Fueling | Proceedings of the Sixth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (San Francisco, California, March 3-7, 1985) | doi.org/10.13182/FST85-A40130
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Poloidal divertors and pumped limiters are the leading candidates for impurity and particle control systems for ignited tokamaks. Such systems must be able to provide heat removal and He pumping while satisfying the requirements for (1) minimum plasma contamination by impurities, (2) reasonable component lifetime (∼ 1 year), and (3) minimum size and cost and maximum simplicity. The advantage of poloidal divertor systems is that they offer the possibility of low sputtering rates for the first wall components and modest pumping requirements due to the formation of a cool, dense plasma near the collector plates. Estimates made as part of the INTOR study indicate that the sputtering rates for pumped limiters could be unacceptably large. A engineering design study of a poloidal divertor system for an ignited tokamak indicates that such a system offers a reasonable solution to the impurity and particle control problem at only a modest increase in total reactor cost (∼7%) and complexity compared to a pumped limiter system.