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Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Securing the advanced reactor fleet
Physical protection accounts for a significant portion of a nuclear power plant’s operational costs. As the U.S. moves toward smaller and safer advanced reactors, similar protection strategies could prove cost prohibitive. For tomorrow’s small modular reactors and microreactors, security costs must remain appropriate to the size of the reactor for economical operation.
Jiaqi Zhang, Akifumi Iwamoto, Keisuke Shigemori, Masanori Hara, Kohei Yamanoi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 3 | May 2024 | Pages 550-557
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2197810
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fuel pellets made of a solid deuterium-tritium (D-T) mixture are supplied for inertial confinement fusion. Characterization of the D-T mixture is fundamental for the design and production of high-quality fuel pellets. However, during the phase transition, isotopologue fractionation may lead to fractional crystallization in the solid phase of the hydrogen isotopologue mixture. If this phenomenon occurs in solid D-T fuel, it will reduce the reaction efficiency of nuclear fusion. Currently, there is no effective observation method for fractional crystallization. This study aims to quantify the degree of fractional crystallization of the hydrogen isotopologues mixture in the solid phase using the refractive index measurement. For this method, refractive index information on the hydrogen isotopologues is necessary, therefore the temperature and wavelength dependences of the refractive index of hydrogen isotopologues need to be measured. Then, using the refractive index distribution of the solid D-T will show the composition distribution of isotopologues for assessing the fractional crystallization. Particularly, as far as we know, this is the first time that the measured values of the refractive index versus wavelength of solid D2 have been obtained. Understanding the wavelength dependence of the refractive index for the dispersion compensation allows for a wider application of the fractionated crystallographic observation method.