ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
R. Koch
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 57 | Number 2 | February 2010 | Pages 185-195
Heating and Current Drive | Proceedings of the Ninth Carolus Magnus Summer School on Plasma and Fusion Energy Physics | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A9409
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The heating of plasmas by fast ions, with a focus on Neutral Beam Injection (NBI), is reviewed. First, the need of auxiliary heating and current drive systems in fusion machines is outlined. For the particular case of tokamaks, the limitations of ohmic heating are discussed. The different ways of generating fast particles in plasmas are presented. The principle of operation of neutral beam injectors is explained. Positive-ion (PNBI) and negativeion (NNBI) based concepts are discussed. Next, the physical processes by which the beam transfers energy to the plasma, namely ionisation and slowing-down are described. For both, an elementary theory is given, whereby simple approximations to the distribution functions of beam injected ions and of alpha particles in reactors are obtained. Applications of NBI to heating, current drive and rotation drive are reviewed and the prospects of NBI for ITER are commented.