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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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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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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.
A. Turner, A. Burns, B. Colling, J. Leppänen
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 74 | Number 4 | November 2018 | Pages 315-320
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2018.1489660
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear analysis supporting the design and licensing of ITER is traditionally performed using MCNP and the reference model C-Model; however, the complexity of C-Model has resulted in the geometry creation and integration process becoming increasingly time-consuming. Serpent 2 is still a beta code; however, recent enhancements mean that it could, in principle, be applied to ITER neutronics analysis. Investigations have been undertaken into the effectiveness of Serpent for ITER neutronics analysis and whether this might offer an efficient modeling environment.
An automated MCNP-to-Serpent model conversion tool was developed and successfully used to create a Serpent 2 variant of C-Model. A version of the deuterium-tritium plasma neutron source was also created. Standard reference tallies in C-Model for the blanket and vacuum vessel heating were implemented, and comparisons were made between the two transport codes assessing nuclear responses and computer requirements in the ITER model. Excellent agreement was found between the two codes when comparing neutron and photon flux and heating in the ITER blanket modules and vacuum vessel.
Comparing tally figures of merit, computer requirements for Serpent were typically three to five times that of MCNP, and memory requirements were broadly similar. While Serpent was slower than MCNP when applied to fusion neutronics, future developments may improve this, and Serpent offers clear benefits that will reduce analyst time, including support for meshed geometry, robust universe implementation that avoids geometry errors at the boundaries, and mixed geometry types. Additional work is proceeding to compare Serpent against experiment benchmarks relevant for fusion shielding problems. While further developments are needed to improve variance reduction techniques and reduce simulation times, this paper demonstrates the suitability of Serpent to some aspects of ITER analysis.