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Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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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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Sam Altman steps down as Oklo board chair
Advanced nuclear company Oklo Inc. has new leadership for its board of directors as billionaire Sam Altman is stepping down from the position he has held since 2015. The move is meant to open new partnership opportunities with OpenAI, where Altman is CEO, and other artificial intelligence companies.
Marco Riva, Alice Ying, Mohamed Abdou, Mu-Young Ahn, Seungyon Cho
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 8 | November 2019 | Pages 1037-1045
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1643691
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this paper, dynamic tritium flow rates and inventories of the outer fuel cycle (OFC) of a DEMOnstration nuclear fusion reactor (DEMO) are analyzed to determine the initial amount of tritium that has to be prepared to sustain plasma operation at reactor start-up, i.e., until tritium bred in blankets is extracted and available. The main components of the helium coolant ceramic reflector tritium breeding system were modeled in detail with the use of COMSOL Multiphysics and integrated into a system-level model within the MATLAB/Simulink platform to simulate OFC tritium streams. Furthermore, a control volume analysis was derived to incorporate the OFC flow rates calculated with the dynamic integrated numerical tool for initial start-up tritium inventory (ISTI) analysis. We found that the tritium processing time of the tritium extraction system (TES) plays a critical role for ISTI assessment. On one hand, for batchwise technology such as adsorption/regeneration columns, the OFC-attributed ISTI is ~2.6 kg calculated for a 3-GW fusion power reactor. On the other hand, online extraction techniques such as catalytic membrane reactors offer continuous operation and result in ~10 to 250 g of ISTI depending on the TES efficiency and breeder material tritium residence time. The helium coolant system (HCS) line has a minor impact on ISTI since tritium retention in HCS components is orders of magnitude lower than the TES line when a tungsten plasma-facing-component coating is implemented.