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Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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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.
D. A. Rasmussen et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 753-757
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - Plasma Engineering, Heating, Current Drive, and Control | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A776
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ITER burning plasma and advanced operating regimes require robust and reliable heating and current drive and fueling systems. The ITER design documents describe the requirements and reference designs for the ion cyclotron and pellet fueling systems. Development and testing programs are required to optimize, validate and qualify these systems for installation on ITER.The ITER ion cyclotron system offers significant technology challenges. The antenna must operate in a nuclear environment and withstand heat loads and disruption forces beyond present-day designs. It must operate for long pulse lengths and be highly reliable, delivering power to a plasma load with properties that will change throughout the discharge. The ITER ion cyclotron system consists of one eight-strap antenna, eight rf sources (20 MW, 35-65 MHz), associated high-voltage DC power supplies, transmission lines and matching and decoupling components.The ITER fueling system consists of a gas injection system and multiple pellet injectors for edge fueling and deep core fueling. Pellet injection will be the primary ITER fuel delivery system. The fueling requirements will require significant extensions in pellet injector pulse length (~3000 s), throughput (400 torr-L/s,) and reliability. The proposed design is based on a centrifuge accelerator fed by a continuous screw extruder. Inner wall pellet injection with the use of curved guide tubes will be utilized for deep fueling.