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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
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Why should safeguards by design be a global effort?
Jeremy Whitlock
I can’t think of a more exciting time to be working in nuclear, with the diversity of advanced reactor development and increasing global support for nuclear in sustainable energy planning. But we can’t lose sight of the need to plan for efficient international safeguards at the same time.
Global nuclear deployment has been underpinned since 1970 by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), making it a key customer requirement for governments to demonstrate unequivocally that the technology is not being misused for weapons development.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has helped verify this commitment for more than 50 years, but it has never safeguarded many of the advanced reactors (and related fuel cycle processes) being developed today.
J. Zhang, R. Kapernick, T. F. Marcille
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 160 | Number 1 | September 2008 | Pages 75-97
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE160-75
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Corrosion of the primary coolant structural materials in a nuclear power system is a potential concern when liquid metal is used as the coolant. For the current space reactor design, liquid sodium-potassium eutectic (NaK) has been selected as a candidate for the primary coolant and stainless steel as the structural material, so whether or not corrosion is a problem for this system must be determined. This paper documents a first step to understanding the extent of corrosion in the selected candidate design. Data available in the literature have been compiled and are analyzed, factors affecting corrosion are assessed, and a theoretical basis of the corrosion mechanisms by liquid metals is presented. This study provides some useful information for the design of NaK coolant systems and some recommendations for what additional experimental and theoretical work is needed to understand the corrosion mechanisms and limitations of using NaK as a primary coolant.