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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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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
W. S. Kiger III, S. Sakamoto, O. K. Harling
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 131 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 1-22
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE99-A2015
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To meet the needs for neutron capture therapy (NCT) irradiations, a high-intensity, high-quality fission converter-based epithermal neutron beam has been designed for the MITR-II research reactor. This epithermal neutron beam, capable of delivering treatments in a few minutes with negligible background contamination from fast neutrons and photons, will be installed in the present thermal column and hohlraum of the 5-MW MITR-II research reactor. Spent or fresh MITR-II fuel elements will be used to fuel the converter. With a fission converter power of ~80 kW using spent fuel, epithermal fluxes (1 eV < E < 10 keV) in excess of 1010 n/cm2s are achievable at the target position with negligible photon and fast neutron contamination, i.e., <2 × 10-11 cGycm2/n. With the currently available 10B delivery compound boronophenylalanine-fructose, average therapeutic ratios of ~5 can be achieved using this beam for brain irradiations with deep effective penetration (~9.5 cm) and high dose rates of up to 400 to 600 RBE cGy/min. If NCT becomes an accepted therapy, fission converter-based beams constructed at existing reactors could meet a large fraction of the projected requirements for intense, low-background epithermal neutron beams at a relatively low cost. The results of an extensive set of neutronic design studies investigating all components of the beam are presented. These detailed studies can be useful as guidance for others who may wish to use the fission converter approach to develop epithermal beams for NCT.
