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Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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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May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Hao Wang, Zhiyao Xing, Eugene Shwageraus (Univ of Cambridge)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 805-814
The availability of Tritium is a problem for the Deuterium-Tritium (D-T) fusion reactors since the element does not exist in nature and has to be bred from Li-6 through neuron capture. The goal of this paper is to explore a possibility of operating a symbiotic system consisting of fleets of fission reactors coupled with fusion reactors. It is proposed in this paper to use salt with high Li-6 content in Fluoride salt-cooled High-temperature Reactor (FHRs) to produce tritium as fuel for D-T fusion reactors. Tritium breeding blankets will therefore no longer be required, potentially making fusion reactors simpler and cheaper to construct and maintain. Two FHR designs, i.e. pebble bed and prismatic block, are studied in this work to investigate the feasibility of the proposed Fission-Fusion hybrid systems. An investigation into neutronics, tritium production, and potential safety issues in the proposed FHR designs are carried out. The tradeoffs between fission reactor performance, such as achievable burnup and fresh fuel enrichment, and tritium production rate are also discussed. Results have shown that such hybrid systems are attractive and potentially feasible. The maximum tritium production rate of the selected design options can reach up to approximately 4 kg per GW thermal power per year.