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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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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Sam Altman steps down as Oklo board chair
Advanced nuclear company Oklo Inc. has new leadership for its board of directors as billionaire Sam Altman is stepping down from the position he has held since 2015. The move is meant to open new partnership opportunities with OpenAI, where Altman is CEO, and other artificial intelligence companies.
Haifei Deng, Desheng Cheng, Weihua Wang, Kaiping Li, Bo Shi, Jinhong Yang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 2 | August 2017 | Pages 188-198
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1320495
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Helium (He) gas Cooled Ceramic Breeder (HCCB) test blanket module (TBM) is the primary option of the Chinese TBM program. In order to enhance the cooling ability of the first wall (FW) of the HCCB TBM and reduce the circulation power, a binary mixtures gas of He gas and additive CO2 deserves to be another option for the coolant of the blanket, based on high temperature gas-cooled reactors which are a generation-IV fission reactor concept, when it is reported that forced convective heat transfer can be enhanced by means of binary mixing with unreactive gas (e.g., CO2, molecular weight 44). This technique can significantly enhance the plant’s overall efficiency and reduce the cost of electricity. In order to evaluate the cooling performance of the He/CO2 binary mixtures gas and its circulation power in the FW of the HCCB TBM, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical simulation, combined experimental research method is applied. The results reveal that under the condition of the cooling requirements of the FW (e. g., maximum temperature, radial temperature gradient) similar to the pure He gas, the flow velocity and circulation power of the He/CO2 binary mixtures gas (mole fraction 0.4) are reduced by 70% and 87%, respectively. It implies that the thermal efficiency of a He-cooled blanket system can be fairly enhanced by means of this technique. In the near future experiment plan, it should be tested to validate the correlative cooling scheme of the HCCB TBM, in which the pure He gas and He/CO2 binary mixtures gas are used as coolant, respectively, at our High-Pressure Helium-Cooled Loop facility. The CFD numerical results will be selected as the reference for the experiments. A new approach may be provided for cooling the high heat flux components of a fusion reactor.