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Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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.
Hilbert Christensen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 109 | Number 3 | March 1995 | Pages 373-382
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A35086
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The production of radiolytic species in a pressurized water reactor has been calculated for various initial hydrogen and boron concentrations. The concentration of oxidants decreases with increasing hydrogen concentration, but the decrease is <20% when [H2] is increased from 5 to 50 Ncm3/kg (N refers to normal conditions, i.e., 0°C, 1.013 bar). The concentration of oxidants is reduced ∼35% when the boron concentration is reduced from 340 to 0 ppm. The reduction is caused by a decrease in linear energy transfer (LET) of the mixed radiation. An increase in LET results in lower radical yields and higher molecular yields. For a hydrogen concentration of 15 Ncm3/kg and a boron concentration of 800 ppm, the highest H2O2 concentration —17 ppb —is found at the highest dose rate in the fuel channel. The highest oxygen concentration — 0.7ppb — is found at the entrance to the downcomer. The highest concentration —0.5 ppb —is found in the fuel channel. Of these species, may be expected to have the highest rate constant in oxidation processes. At a hydrogen concentration of 5 Ncm3/kg, the oxidant concentrations are only slightly higher than the preceding values. A decrease in hydrogen concentration is supposed to be beneficial in decreasing the risk of primary water stress corrosion cracking of the steam generator alloy 600 material.