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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
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August 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Taking shape: Fusion energy ecosystems built with public-private partnerships
It’s possible to describe fusion in simple terms: heat and squeeze small atoms to get abundant clean energy. But there’s nothing simple about getting fusion ready for the grid.
Private developers, national lab and university researchers, suppliers, and end users working toward that goal are developing a range of complex technologies to reach fusion temperatures and pressures, confounded by science and technology gaps linked to plasma behavior; materials, diagnostics, and electronics for extreme environments; fuel cycle sustainability; and economics.
S. A. Musa, B. Zhao, S. I. Abdel-Khalik, M. Yoda
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 306-311
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1333829
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experimental evaluation of the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of helium-cooled divertor concepts is important in developing commercial magnetic fusion energy (MFE). Although experimental studies of a variety of concepts have been performed at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) over the last decade, achieving prototypical steady-state incident heat fluxes of 10 MW/m2 remains a major challenge. As an alternative to heating the test section, this work presents an initial assessment of a “reversed heat flux approach” that cools the test modules (instead of heating them) with water to determine the heat transfer coefficients (HTC). This approach was pioneered by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in their initial studies of the helium-cooled modular divertor with multiple jets (HEMJ).
The objectives of this design study are to: 1) determine whether such a reversed heat flux approach can be used to experimentally study the thermal-hydraulic performance of helium-cooled divertor concepts, while minimizing safety and operational issues associated with the extremely high temperatures (>1200°C) reached when testing at prototypical conditions (inlet conditions of 700°C and 10 MPa with an incident heat flux of 10 MW/m2), and 2) determine the design and operational parameters for a small-scale submerged water jet impingement cooling facility suitable for validating these numerical predictions. Numerical simulations were performed to determine the impinging-jet (water) mass flow rates required to remove heat fluxes up to 10 MW/m2 from a single HEMJ module at prototypical conditions (i.e., 700°C and 10 MPa). Initial axisymmetric simulations at water pressures up to 3 MPa suggest that a submerged single-phase impinging water jet at (300 K, 1 MPa) and = 3.5 kg/s can remove heat fluxes as great as 7.5 MW/m2 over a 2 cm diameter area.