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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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.
Hee Taek Chae, Jong Hark Park, Heonil Kim, Soon Heung Chang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 148 | Number 3 | December 2004 | Pages 287-293
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3567
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Critical heat flux (CHF) tests using rod bundles were performed under low-flow conditions to supplement the CHF database for HANARO fuel. The test rod had the same geometric configuration as the HANARO fuel, and its aluminum cladding with fins was made by coextrusion on the stainless steel heating tube. Three types of test sections were used: hexagonal with seven rods, triangular with three rods, and rectangular with four rods. Each test bundle has three spacers axially, and a view window is located in the upper region of the test section. Flow patterns until the CHF condition are typically varied from bubbly flow to annular flow, and then CHF occurs through the long annular flow period. A total of 36 bundle CHF data were obtained from the 3 test sections. The results showed that the CHFs for bundles are larger than those for a single rod with the same geometrical dimension by a maximum 26% as the mass flux changes. It is considered that these results are induced by the enhancement of the turbulence and thermal mixing generated by the spacers. In addition, measurement of the onset of nucleate boiling (ONB) in the rectangular bundle was attempted using sound signals. A hydrophone was attached near the outlet wall of the test section. Hydrophone signals around the ONB point were measured and analyzed based on the frequency through the real fast Fourier transform. Frequency analysis showed clear differences in the power spectral densities for two different frequency ranges before and after ONB, which verifies the usefulness of sound signals for ONB detection.