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Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Fabio Pisano, Barbara Cannas, Alessandra Fanni, Giuliana Sias, Marcin W. Jakubowski, Peter Drewelow, Holger Niemann, Aleix Puig Sitjes, Yu Gao, Victor Moncada, Glen Wurden, W7-X Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 8 | November 2020 | Pages 933-941
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1819750
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) is the most advanced operating stellarator in fusion research. The monitoring and control of the heat loads on the plasma-facing components (PFCs) will be critical during the next operation phase in which the ten water-cooled divertors will have to withstand heat loads of the order of 10 MW/m2. This paper gives an overview of the image analysis tools for camera spatial calibration and scene modeling that are an essential part of the real-time PFC protection system currently under development at the W7-X. Some applications of these tools are also provided, specifically for the strike-line characterization.
