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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
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.
Meeting Spotlight
2021 Student Conference
April 8–10, 2021
Virtual Meeting
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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Latest News
NC State celebrates 70 years of nuclear engineering education
An early picture of the research reactor building on the North Carolina State University campus. The Department of Nuclear Engineering is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its nuclear engineering curriculum in 2020–2021. Photo: North Carolina State University
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University has spent the 2020–2021 academic year celebrating the 70th anniversary of its becoming the first U.S. university to establish a nuclear engineering curriculum. It started in 1950, when Clifford Beck, then of Oak Ridge, Tenn., obtained support from NC State’s dean of engineering, Harold Lampe, to build the nation’s first university nuclear reactor and, in conjunction, establish an educational curriculum dedicated to nuclear engineering.
The department, host to the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, scheduled for April 8–10, now features 23 tenure/tenure-track faculty and three research faculty members. “What a journey for the first nuclear engineering curriculum in the nation,” said Kostadin Ivanov, professor and department head.
Brian J. Egle, Gerald L. Kulcinski
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 518-522
Experimental Facilities and Nonelectric Applications | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A8955
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Design, modeling and simulation work has been done to develop a system of producing radioisotopes by using D-3He fusion and the Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion concept. This work provides a set of requirements for moving from the previous proof-of-concept experiments to medically relevant dosages of the radioisotopes used in Position Emission Tomography (PET). This study focuses primarily on the production of 11C from the 14N(p, ) 11C reaction, and could be extended to additional PET isotopes. A target was designed for gaseous parent materials; it consists of vacuum tight panels placed inside the vacuum vessel of an IEC device. The side facing the isotropic source of 14.7 MeV fusion protons is a thin metal foil (~0.5 mm of Ti). The foil acts to separate the vacuum environment of the IEC device from the pressured gaseous environment of the target. Parametric analysis of the foil thickness and 14N gas pressure was performed to optimize the efficiency of fusion protons in producing 11C. The MCNPX 2.5.0 simulations predicted that an optimized system could produce 390 nCi of 11C with the present laboratory scale IEC device at the University of Wisconsin, which has a D-3He fusion rate of 2 x 107 protons per sec (p/s).
