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Division Spotlight
Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
Meeting Spotlight
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
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
Dragonfly, a Pu-fueled drone heading to Titan, gets key NASA approval
Curiosity landed on Mars sporting a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in 2012, and a second NASA rover, Perseverance, landed in 2021. Both are still rolling across the red planet in the name of science. Another exploratory craft with a similar plutonium-238–fueled RTG but a very different mission—to fly between multiple test sites on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon—recently got one step closer to deployment.
On April 25, NASA and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced that the Dragonfly mission to Saturn’s icy moon passed its critical design review. “Passing this mission milestone means that Dragonfly’s mission design, fabrication, integration, and test plans are all approved, and the mission can now turn its attention to the construction of the spacecraft itself,” according to NASA.
Woan Hwang, Cheol Nam, Thak Sang Byun, Young Cheol Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 123 | Number 2 | August 1998 | Pages 130-141
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2887
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Computational models for analyzing in-reactor behavior of metallic fuel pins in liquid-metal reactors under steady-state conditions are developed and implemented in the Metal fuel performance Analysis (computer) Code for Simulating the In-reactor behavior under Steady-state conditions (MACSIS). Sodium logging and constituent redistribution effects are considered in calculating the temperature profile. The model for the radial redistribution of the fuel constituent is based on the thermotransport theory. The fission gas release model takes multibubble size distribution into account to characterize the lenticular bubble shape and the saturation condition on the grain boundary. Finally, the clad strains are calculated from the amount of fission gas released and interface pressure. Sample calculations are performed to verify each model. The results show that in general, the predictions of MACSIS agree well with the available irradiation data.
