Resurgence of a Nation’s Radiation Science Driven by Its Nuclear Industry Needs

This article describes the radiation facilities and associated sample preparation, management, and analysis equipment currently in place at the Dalton Cumbrian Facility, a facility which opened in 2011 to support the UK’s nuclear industry. Examples of measurements performed using these facilities are presented to illustrate their versatility and the breadth of research they make possible. Results are presented from research which furthers our understanding of radiation damage to polymeric materials, radiolytic yield of gaseous products in situations relevant to nuclear materials, radiation chemistry in light water reactor cooling systems, material chemistry relevant to immobilization of nuclear waste, and radiation-induced corrosion of fuel cladding elements. Applications of radiation chemistry relevant to health care are also described. Research concerning the mechanisms of radioprotection by dietary carotenoids is reported. An ongoing open-labware project to develop a suite of modular sample handling components suited to radiation research is described, as is the development of a new neutron source able to provide directional beams of neutrons.

Editorial Message to Journal Readers

The ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science (https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/nuclearengineering) celebrates its seventh year (our first issue was published in January of 2015). On this occasion, I would like to congratulate all members of our Journal Board, reviewers (their names are listed at the end of this greeting), authors, and readers with this date! Year 2021 was quite challenging again to everybody and to our Journal as well due to continuous spreading of the coronavirus around the world, quarantine measures, working from home, etc. Also, unfortunately, many nuclear-engineering / radiation-science conferences were cancelled, moved to next year, or conducted virtually. Therefore, we would like to invite authors from these conferences to submit their augmented and revised papers to our Journal with the objective to publish as soon as possible their valuable research / technical results. We pay special attention to papers from young scientists, researchers, engineers, and students to be sure that we will have smooth transition from one generation of nuclear experts to another. As such, in addition to regular papers from young specialists, we have managed to prepare a Special Issue (SI) with selected papers from the International Youth Nuclear Congress (IYNC) 2020 (Sydney, Australia), and plan to have several similar SIs in the near future. During our seventh year, we have published four issues electronically and as hard copies (as planned, always on time or ahead of a schedule) with about 100 papers including two Special Issues with selected augmented and revised papers.

The Asme Nuclear Engineering Division Celebrates the 7th Year of the Journal

The ASME Nuclear Engineering Division (NED), the sponsoring organization for both the creation of the Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science and key supporter of Professor Igor Pioro as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, is delighted to note that the journal has been successfully publishing high impact technical articles for the benefit of the nuclear community since 2015. In keeping with the NED support of the Journal, and of course NED policy to implement and complement the position and practices of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the NED is acting to tailor its organization to better serve the needs of both. Recently the NED Executive Committee (EC) voted to create a flexible and dynamic organizational structure capable of providing timely and comprehensive support for nuclear engineering-related conferences and summits. A major ingredient in the NED organization are NED-lead technical committees focused on current developments and industry-related topics that support the nuclear community, for example centered on advanced reactors, thermal-hydraulics (including computational fluid dynamics as well as verification and validation), and codes and standards, etc. The focus areas for the technical committees are reflected in the track content of the NED sponsored International Conference On Nuclear Engineering (ICONE) each year. The administrative committees will focus on the organization of conferences/meetings as well as the administrative needs of NED. Presently the NED co-sponsors the Small Modular and Micro Reactor Summit (SMMR), and Advanced Clean Energy Summit (ACES) in addition to sponsoring ICONE.

Guest Editorial by Gilles Rodriguez

It is an honour and a pleasure to wish to all actors of the ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science (Chair, Editors, Authors, Readers, and Reviewers) my New Year's greetings. This 2022 year must be seen towards an exit of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, looking for better perspectives. We must capitalize on the best of this period and on the way out of the health crisis. Even in this extremely difficult context, the links still existed. They were even been strengthened by showing more solidarity, support and mutual aid. We must keep these qualities within our scientific community, because we must now face a new decisive challenge: responding to a very strong increase in carbon-free energy demand. In order to meet this challenge, nuclear energy has a major role to play among all other non-CO2 emitting sources of energy. Its great flexibility and massive production capacity makes it a perfect complement to renewable production systems.

Word from the Horizon-2020 EU ESFR-SMART Project Coordinator

This Special Issue of the ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science includes 2 editorials and 25 technical papers presenting main achievements of the Horizon-2020 European Union ESFR-SMART project (European Sodium Fast Reactor Safety Measures Assessment and Research Tools) supported by the EURATOM grant and launched in September 2017. ESFR-SMART gathers a consortium of 19 organizations (see Figure 1): Research centres, industries, universities, Technical and Scientific Support Organizations as well as Small to Medium Enterprise aiming at enhancing further the safety of Generation-IV Sodium Fast Reactors (SFRs) and, in particular, of the commercial-size European Sodium Fast Reactor (ESFR) in accordance with the European Sustainable Nuclear Industrial Initiative (ESNII) roadmap.