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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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Take steps on SNF and HLW disposal
Matt Bowen
With a new administration and Congress, it is time once again to ponder what will happen—if anything—on U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management policy over the next few years. One element of the forthcoming discussion seems clear: The executive and legislative branches are eager to talk about recycling commercial SNF. Whatever the merits of doing so, it does not obviate the need for one or more facilities for disposal of remaining long-lived radionuclides. For that reason, making progress on U.S. disposal capabilities remains urgent, lest the associated radionuclide inventories simply be left for future generations to deal with.
In March, Rick Perry, who was secretary of energy during President Trump’s first administration, observed that during his tenure at the Department of Energy it became clear to him that any plan to move SNF “required some practical consent of the receiving state and local community.”1
Kun Lu, Shijun Qin, Zhuang Xu, Yang Zhang, Guang Shen, Zhihong Liu, Chen Liu, Jing Wei, Sumei Liu, Yuntao Song, Jiefeng Wu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 3 | April 2019 | Pages 226-233
Regular Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2018.1555409
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The vacuum vessel (VV), one of the important components for the Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) superconducting magnet tokamak, can provide an ultrahigh vacuum and clean environment for plasma operation. The CFETR VV was preliminarily designed to be a torus with a D-shaped cross section, eight upper vertical ports, eight equatorial ports, and eight lower ports. In order to verify the design and key technologies to be used in the future, a 1/8 VV sector mock-up has been designed and fabricated at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (abbreviated ASIPP). In this paper, the mock-up is used to demonstrate thick austenitic stainless steel plate hot forming, welding, cutting, part segment assembly, and other technologies and developments. The design considerations and criteria of the 1/8 sector mock-up are discussed in detail. Based on these considerations, the main design parameters and characteristics of the 1/8 VV sector mock-up are described, including the inner shells, outer shells, and stiffening ribs between them and the straight line, arcs, and the tangential joint between them. Finally, the research and development of technologies for the mock-up manufacture that has been carried out at ASIPP is discussed.