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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.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Remembering Charles E. Till
Charles E. Till
Charles E. Till, an ANS member since 1963 and Fellow since 1987, passed away on March 22 at the age of 89. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Imperial College, University of London. Till initially worked for the Civilian Atomic Power Department of the Canadian General Electric Company, where he was the physicist in charge of the startup of the first prototype CANDU reactor in Canada.
Till joined Argonne National Laboratory in 1963 in the Applied Physics Division, where he worked as an experimentalist in the Fast Critical Experiments program. He then moved to additional positions of increasing responsibility, becoming division director in 1973. Under his leadership, the Applied Physics Division established itself as one of the elite reactor physics organizations in the world. Both the experimental (critical experiments and nuclear data measurements) and nuclear analysis methods work were internationally recognized. Till led Argonne’s participation in the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE), and he was the lead U.S. delegate to INFCE Working Group 5, Fast Breeders.
Victor Bykov, Jiawu Zhu, Andre Carls, Ilia Ivashov, Joachim Geiger, Bernd Hein, Hans-Stephan Bosch, Lutz Wegener, the W7-X Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 7 | October 2019 | Pages 730-739
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1623568
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The largest modular stellarator, the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), has completed its second phase of operation, OP1.2, in Greifswald, Germany. The inertially cooled divertor installed between mid-2016 and mid-2017 has allowed a wider range of plasma configurations in comparison with the first operation phase, OP1. The sophisticated W7-X superconducting magnet system is further loaded up to 70% of its maximum design loads for all main components. The extensive set of mechanical sensors clearly shows a highly nonlinear system response, which is in rather good correspondence with the predictions from the available advanced numerical models.
However, there are also significant deviations observed in several areas. Therefore, modeling improvements and/or parameter variation analyses are necessary to clarify the issues in preparation for the upcoming, more demanding phase OP2 (2021+) with the actively cooled divertor and longer plasma pulses to guarantee safe and reliable W7-X operation.
The updated strategy to release multiple new plasma configurations being compatible with W7-X component design values is described briefly. In this approach, the numerical model linearization in the vicinity of an accurately analyzed point is a key method to accelerate the process and to highlight areas for vacuum field parameters not allowed for plasma operation due to structural criticality.
A brief overview of the W7-X measurement results, the observed deviations with numerical models, and the implemented improvements, as well as the lessons learned so far, are presented.