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 Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Terrestrial Energy, Schneider partner on molten salt reactor
Terrestrial Energy and Schneider Electric are teaming to deploy Terrestrial Energy's integral molten salt reactor (IMSR) to provide zero-emission power to industrial facilities and large data centers.
The companies signed a memorandum of understanding in April to jointly develop commercial opportunities with high-energy users looking for reliable, affordable, and zero-carbon baseload supply. Terrestrial Energy said that working with Schneider “offers solutions to the major energy challenges faced by data center operators and many heavy industries operating a wide range of industrial processes such as hydrogen, ammonia, aluminum, and steel production.”
Junghyun Bae, Robert S. Bean
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 10 | October 2022 | Pages 1224-1235
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2055700
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In pool-type research reactors, the fuel core is placed in a large open pool of water, and it is consistently cooled by natural circulation. To meet the increasing demands of reactor-based research, i.e., neutron irradiation and isotope production, many institutes have been considering upgrading the designed power levels of their research reactors to maximize their utility. However, increasing operating power levels without replacing the major components of the reactor system is challenging because two important analyses must be extensively performed: (1) neutron transport analysis for nuclear fission and decay heat generation and (2) thermohydraulic analysis for heat removal in the core. In this paper, we investigate thermohydraulic limits on the maximum power of the Purdue University research reactor (PUR-1) using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations which are coupled with the results from Monte Carlo neutron transport simulations. We design a PUR-1 fuel assembly, which is designated as the hottest one for CFD simulations, that includes a narrow, rectangular, and upward coolant channel. Here we demonstrate that the thermohydraulic limit for PUR-1 core power is 350 kW without changing the coolant system. Given a conservative safety margin, however, the estimated maximum power level is decreased to 170 kW. In the end, the results of two additional cooling systems—guide pipe and lowered coolant temperature—are presented to demonstrate the potential of advanced cooling capacity. They would enable reactors to operate at higher core power levels.