It may be possible to replace conventional actively cooled tokamak divertor plates with a set of rapidly moving, passively cooled divertor plates on rails. These plates would absorb the plasma heat flux with their thermal inertia for ~10-30 sec, and would then be removed from the vessel for processing. When outside the tokamak, these plates could be cooled, cleaned, recoated, inspected, and then returned to the vessel in an automated loop. This scheme could provide nearoptimal divertor surfaces at all times, and avoid the need to stop machine operation for repair of damaged or eroded plates. We describe various possible divertor plate designs and access geometries, and discuss an initial design for a movable and removable divertor module for NSTX-U.

A methodology for calculating inventories for the NBSR has been developed using the MCNPX computer code with the BURN option. A major advantage of the present methodology over the previous methodology, where MONTEBURNS and MCNP5 were used, is that more materials can be included in the model. The NBSR has 30 fuel elements each with a 17.8 cm (7 in) gap in the middle of the fuel. In the startup position, the shim control arms are partially inserted in the top half of the core. During the 38.5 day cycle, the shim arms are slowly removed to their withdrawn (horizontal) positions. This movement of shim arms causes asymmetries between the burnup of the fuel in the upper and lower halves and across the line of symmetry for the fuel loading. With the MONTEBURNS analyses there was a limitation to the number of materials that could be analyzed so 15 materials in the top half of the core and 15 materials in the bottom half of the core were used, and a half-core (east-west) symmetry was assumed. Since MCNPX allows more materials, this east-west symmetry was not necessary and the core was represented with 60 different materials. The methodology for developing …

A Saltstone waste form was prepared in the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) from a Tank 50H sample and Z-Area premix material for the first quarter of calendar year 2011 (1QCY11). After the prescribed 28 day cure, samples of the saltstone were collected, and the waste form was shown to meet the South Carolina Hazardous Waste Management Regulations (SCHWMR) R.61-79.261.24 and R.61-79.268.48(a) requirements for a nonhazardous waste form with respect to RCRA metals and underlying hazardous constituents. These analyses met all quality assurance specifications of USEPA SW-846. The Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) receives waste from Tank 50H for treatment. In the first quarter of the 2011 calendar year (1QCY11), Tank 50H accepted transfers of approximately 15 kgal from the Effluent Treatment Project (ETP), approximately 15 kgal from Tank 710 - the H-Canyon General Purpose Evaporator, approximately 73 kgal from the H-Canyon Super Kukla campaign, approximately 285 kgal from the Actinide Removal Process/Modular Caustic Side Solvent Extraction Unit (ARP/MCU) Decontaminated Salt Solution Hold Tank (DSS-HT), and approximately 21 kgal from other sources. The Saltstone Grout Sampling plan provides the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) with the chemical and physical characterization strategy for the salt solution which is …

An Electron Lens (E-Lens) system will be installed in RHIC to increase luminosity by counteracting the head-on beam-beam interaction. The proton beam collisions at the RHIC experimental locations will introduce a tune spread due to a difference of tune shifts between small and large amplitude particles. A low energy electron beam will be used to improve luminosity and lifetime of the colliding beams by reducing the betatron tune shift and spread. In preparation for the Electron Lens installation next year, a test bench facility will be used to gain experience with many sub-systems. This paper will discuss the diagnostics related to measuring the electron beam parameters.

Monosodium titanate (MST) for use in the Actinide Removal Process (ARP) must be qualified and verified in advance. A single qualification sample for each batch of material is sent to SRNL for analysis, as well as a statistical sampling of verification samples. The Harrell Industries Lot 030311 qualification and 9 verification samples met all the requirements in the specification indicating the material is acceptable for use in the process. Harrell Industries is under contract with Savannah River Remediation to provide MST for use in the Actinide Removal Process (ARP). A 500-mL qualification sample for Lot 030311 was sent to the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to confirm the material meets the requirements specified in the purchase specification. The vendor is also obligated to send verification samples from {approx}10% or more of the pails of MST product for each lot (distributed roughly evenly through the entire lot of pails). For the verification of this lot, Harrell Industries sent 9 samples, one each from pails 1, 5, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 45, and 55 of 59 total pails.

The Consortium of Big-10 University Research and Training Reactors was by design a strategic partnership of seven leading institutions. We received the support of both our industry and DOE laboratory partners. Investiments in reactor, laboratory and program infrastructure, allowed us to lead the national effort to expand and improve the education of engineers in nuclear science and engineering, to provide outreach and education to pre-college educators and students and to become a key resource of ideas and trained personnel for our U.S. industrial and DOE laboratory collaborators.

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) and Brookhaven National Laboratory are conducting a collaborative research project to develop seismic capability evaluation technology for degraded structures and components in nuclear power plants (NPPs). One of the goals of this collaboration endeavor is to develop seismic fragility analysis methods that consider the potential effects of age-related degradation of structures, systems, and components (SSCs). The essential part of this collaboration is aimed at achieving a better understanding of the effects of aging on the performance of SSCs and ultimately on the safety of NPPs. A recent search of the degradation occurrences of structures and passive components (SPCs) showed that the rate of aging related degradation in NPPs was not significantly large but increasing, as the plants get older. The slow but increasing rate of degradation of SPCs can potentially affect the safety of the older plants and become an important factor in decision making in the current trend of extending the operating license period of the plants (e.g., in the U.S. from 40 years to 60 years, and even potentially to 80 years). The condition and performance of major aged NPP structures such as the containment contributes to the life span of …

Error field correction results in DIII-D plasmas are presented in various configurations. In both left-handed and right-handed plasma configurations, where the intrinsic error fields become different due to the opposite helical twist (handedness) of the magnetic field, the optimal error correction currents and the toroidal phases of internal(I)-coils are empirically established. Applications of the Ideal Perturbed Equilibrium Code to these results demonstrate that the field component to be minimized is not the resonant component of the external field, but the total field including ideal plasma responses. Consistency between experiment and theory has been greatly improved along with the understanding of ideal plasma responses, but non-ideal plasma responses still need to be understood to achieve the reliable predictability in tokamak error field correction.

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