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Division Spotlight
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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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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.
Robert Kozma, Masaharu Kitamura, J. Eduard Hoogenboom
Nuclear Technology | Volume 118 | Number 3 | June 1997 | Pages 242-253
Technical Paper | Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35365
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The binomial theory of void fraction fluctuations is applied to the interpretation of neutron detector signals generated by density fluctuations of the coolant in nuclear reactors. Experiments are performed at the experimental setup for noise investigations on boiling effects (NIOBE) with the injection of nitrogen bubbles into a narrow coolant channel. NIOBE is a thermal-hydraulic loop located in the Higher Educational Reactor (Hoger Onderwijs Reactor) of the Interfaculty Reactor Institute, Delft, The Netherlands. The monitored two-phase-flow parameters include the size of bubbles and the density of bubble populations within the field of view of the neutron detectors, as well as local void fraction. Based on the experiments, a quantitative relationship is established between the parameters of two-phase flows and the measured neutron noise intensity. The validity of the results is not restricted to research reactor applications, and the conclusions can be used to monitor two-phase-flow coolant in power reactors as well.