ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2024
Latest News
Lightbridge announces first U-Zr fuel rod samples extruded at INL
Lightbridge Corporation announced today that it has reached “a critical milestone” in the development of its extruded solid fuel technology. Coupon samples using an alloy of zirconium and depleted uranium—not the high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) that Lightbridge plans to use to manufacture its fuel for the commercial market—were extruded at Idaho National Laboratory’s Materials and Fuels Complex.
A. Rashkovan, D. McClure, D. R. Novog
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 177 | Number 2 | June 2014 | Pages 141-155
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-4
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Grid spacers within nuclear fuel assemblies play a critical role in fuel performance and contribute to safety margins by enhancing the margin to the critical heat flux. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency has organized a computational benchmark wherein the prediction of flows and turbulence downstream of a mixing-type grid spacer are examined. Studies performed by McMaster University using STAR-CCM+ for the final submission to this MATiS-H blind benchmark exercise related to inter-subchannel mixing and turbulence are presented in this paper. The rationale behind the choice of the computational scheme along with comparisons of the submitted results to the experiments is reported. The goal at the outset of the study was to obtain a reasonably accurate solution with a minimum number of nodes and appropriate turbulence models such that the results would be relevant for engineering applications that include property variations and heat transfer. As such, advanced modeling methods such as large eddy simulation and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) were not included within the scope of the models tested. However, URANS was used to study some specific separate-effect flow features within the grid spacer, and these tests were compared to their steady counterparts.
A comprehensive separate-effect study was performed first in order to finalize the computational scheme for the submission. Several partial geometries were studied for steady and unsteady behavior as well as for mesh sensitivity, turbulence, and wall modeling effects. A series of successively more complex simulations, sometimes involving unsteady modeling, was performed up to and including a study of similar 5 × 5 rod bundle geometry reported in the literature. The final submission results are presented in the paper and are compared with the benchmark data that have recently been released.