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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.
S. K. Combs, L. R. Baylor, C. R. Foust, M. J. Gouge, T. C. Jernigan, S. L. Milora, J-F Artaud, A. Géraud
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 419-424
Plasma Fueling, Heating, and Current Drive | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963649
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
High-speed injection of pellets, composed of frozen hydrogen isotopes and multimillimeter in size, is commonly used for core fueling of magnetically confined plasmas for controlled thermonuclear fusion research. Straight guide tubes have typically been used to transport/deliver pellets from the acceleration device to the outside, or magnetic low-field side, of the torus/plasma (distance of −5 to 10 m for most installations). Recently, alternative pellet injection schemes have been used in plasma fueling experiments, including inside launch from the magnetic high-field side on ASDEX-U and top launch (vertically downward) on Tore Supra and DIII-D. These schemes require the use of curved guide tubes in which the pellets are subjected to stresses from centrifugal and impact forces. Thus, with curved guide tubes the speed at which intact pellets can be delivered reliably to the plasma is limited. In impact experiments on flat plates, it was found that deuterium (D2) pellets can survive single collisions at normal velocities in the range 20 to 35 m/s. Several series of tests with various curved guide tube configurations have been carried out, showing that intact pellets can be reliably delivered at speeds of several hundreds of meters per second. The experimental data are summarized and discussed. Also, a model is under development at Tore Supra for predicting these phenomena, and preliminary comparisons with the data are discussed.