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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2021)
February 9–11, 2021
Virtual Meeting
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2021
Nuclear Technology
January 2021
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2020
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Notes on fusion
The ST25-HTS tokamak.
Governments around the world have been interested in fusion for more than 70 years. Fusion research was largely secret until 1968, when the Soviets unveiled exciting results from their tokamak (a magnetic confinement fusion device with a particular configuration that produces a toroidal plasma). The Soviets realized that tokamaks were not useful as weapons but could produce plasma in the million-degree temperature range to demonstrate Soviet scientific and technical prowess to the world.
Following this breakthrough, government laboratories around the world continued to pursue various methods of confining hot plasma to understand plasma physics under extreme conditions, getting closer and closer to the conditions necessary for fusion energy production. Tokamaks have been by far the most successful configuration. In the 1990s, the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory produced 10 MW of fusion power using deuterium-tritium fusion. A few years later, the Joint European Torus (JET) in the United Kingdom increased that to 16 MW, getting close to breakeven using 24 MW of power to heat the plasma.
Thomas E. Michener, David R. Rector, Judith M. Cuta
Nuclear Technology | Volume 199 | Number 3 | September 2017 | Pages 330-349
Technical Paper | dx.doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1305190
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
COBRA-SFS, a thermal-hydraulic code developed for steady-state and transient analysis of multiassembly spent-fuel storage and transportation systems, has been incorporated into the Used Nuclear Fuel-Storage, Transportation and Disposal Analysis Resource and Data System tool as a module devoted to spent-fuel-package thermal analysis. This paper summarizes the basic formulation of the equations and models used in the COBRA-SFS code, showing that COBRA-SFS fully captures the important physical behavior governing the thermal performance of spent-fuel storage systems, with internal and external natural convection flow patterns, and heat transfer by convection, conduction, and thermal radiation. Of particular significance is the capability for detailed thermal radiation modeling within the fuel rod array.
