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Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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
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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.
Richard V Carlson, Kenji Okuno
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 900-904
Fuel Cycle and Tritium Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963052
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Tritium Systems Test Assembly (TSTA) at Los Alamos National Laboratory is a facility designed to develop and demonstrate, in full scale, selected tritium systems necessary for safe and efficient operation of fusion reactors. TSTA currently consists of systems for pumping DT fuel mixtures; for removing gaseous impurities from DT gas streams; for separating the isotopes of hydrogen; for storage of hydrogen isotopes; for gas analysis; for studying materials interaction with a tritium plasma; for fueling a reactor with solid DT pellets; and for assuring safety by the necessary control, monitoring, and detritiation of effluent gaseous streams. TSTA also has several smaller scale experiments to develop and test new equipment and processes necessary for fusion reactors. These include laser Raman studies, development of a self assaying tritium storage bed, and tritium compatibility tests for valves and materials. After completion of the experiments on the JAERI Fuel Cleanup system, the system has been decontaminated and disposed (D&D) of as waste. This was accomplished with no increases in stack tritium emissions and personnel exposures. A new tritium plasma experiment and pellet injector has been added to TSTA.
Tritium was introduced into TSTA in June 1984. The current tritium inventory is approximately 130 grams. Approximately 5×109 curies of tritium have been processed in closed loop operation at TSTA. Total tritium releases from the facility stack have been less than 346 Curies during the entire operating history. The goal of TSTA has been to maintain annual stack releases to less than 200 Ci. Total operating personnel exposures (for approximately 20 workers) are less than 1 person-rem. Exposures to the general public from TSTA tritium releases are extremely small (less than 10-2 mrem.).
An important aspect of compliance with these requirements is the management program developed to support TSTA operations. These include: quality assurance, training, maintenance, radiation protection, safety documentation such as safety analysis reports, document and procedure control, EPA stack monitoring compliance, conduct of operations, emergency preparedness, and waste management.
