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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Steinar Solstad, Rudi Van Nieuwenhove
Nuclear Technology | Volume 173 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 78-85
Technical Paper | NPIC&HMIT Special / Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A11486
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Halden Reactor Project (HRP) relies on extensive use of in-core instrumentation for both fuel and material testing in the Halden Boiling Water Reactor (HBWR). Separate loop systems have been installed in the reactor to simulate boiling water reactor and pressurized water reactor conditions. Reliable in-core instrumentation has been developed for measuring all key parameters both for fuel and material such as fission gas release, fuel temperature, fuel swelling/densification, cladding creep, etc. HRP has a fully equipped workshop for instrument production, and all our instruments are developed and made in-house. Instruments based upon the in-core linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) have been developed by HRP, such as the fuel pressure sensor, fuel rod expansion thermometer, fuel swelling, and cladding elongation. A special diameter gauge based upon the LVDT principle has also been developed to measure diametric changes of the fuel rods.In order to characterize the irradiation conditions (both nuclear and chemical), the HRP has developed the miniaturized gamma thermometer and various types of electrochemical potential sensors. In addition, different types of self-powered neutron detectors have been developed. Ongoing development of in-core instrumentation and measurement techniques focuses on high-temperature conditions and new methods for crack detection and corrosion of fuel cladding materials. Another topic under development is online corrosion detection by means of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Initial in-core measurements have been performed at HRP.