ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference Virtual Summit (UWC)
August 11, 2020
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2020
Jan 2020
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2020
Nuclear Technology
August 2020
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Penfield and Enos: Outage planning in the COVID-19 era
Penfield
Enos
Energy Harbor’s Beaver Valley plant, located about 34 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, Pa., was one of many nuclear sites preparing for a scheduled outage as the coronavirus pandemic intensified in March. The baseline objective of any planned outage—to complete refueling on time and get back to producing power—was complicated by the need to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.
While over 200 of the plant’s 850 staff members worked from home to support the outage, about 800 contractors were brought in for jobs that could only be done on-site. Nuclear News Staff Writer Susan Gallier talked with Beaver Valley Site Vice President Rod Penfield and General Plant Manager Matt Enos about the planning and communication required.
Beaver Valley can look forward to several more outages in the future, now that plans to shut down the two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors, each rated at about 960 MWe, were reversed in March. “The deactivation announcement happened in the middle of all our planning,” Enos said. “It’s a shame we haven’t had a chance to get together as a large group and celebrate that yet.”
While the focus remains on safe pandemic operations, the site now has two causes for celebration: an outage success and a long future ahead.
Satoshi Fukada, Mao Kinjyo, Takuji Oda, Terunori Nishikawa, Kadzunari Katayama
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 374-381
Technical Paper | dx.doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1327293
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Various properties of Li-Pb eutectic alloys have been reported aiming at adopting the tritium breeder for the next-step fusion reactor, DEMO. Relations among several physical or chemical properties are reinvestigated here based on not only macroscopic views of the H isotope solubility in Li-Pb and the chemical activity of Li and Pb atoms in the alloy but also a microscopic view on the state of being of H and Li atoms in alloy based on the 1st principle molecular dynamic (MD) numerical calculation. The Sieverts’ constant of H dissolved in Li-Pb is closely related with the chemical activity of Li in Li-Pb. It is found that H dissolved in Li-Pb eutectic alloy has an ionic Li+-H− bond with a single Li atom independent of other Li or Pb atoms and the Li+-H− ionic bond is isolated from another Li atom surrounded by Pb ones. The isotope effect for the Sieverts’ constant is also understood in terms of the state of being of the Li+-H− bond in the alloy. The amounts of inert gases dissolved in the Li-Pb eutectic alloy are evaluated, and it is found that their solubilities are in proportion to the square of the molecular diameter which is estimated from exclusive volume of dissolved gas and consequently with the open space volume among Li-Pb atoms. Two experimental results of hydrogen isotopes recovery are introduced using a permeation window and a Li-Pb and inert gas direct contact method, and mass-transfer coefficients to correlate the overall hydrogen transfer process are determined as a function of diffusivity and flow velocity.
