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
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS 2025)
May 4–8, 2025
Huntsville, AL|Huntsville Marriott and the Space & Rocket Center
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 2025
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Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
U.S. nuclear capacity factors: Stability and energy dominance
Nuclear generation has inertia. Massive spinning turbines keep electricity flowing during grid disturbances. But nuclear generation also has a kind of inertia that isn’t governed by the laws of motion.
Starting—and then finishing—a power reactor construction project requires significant upfront effort and money, but once built a reactor can run for decades. Capacity factors of U.S. reactors have remained near 90 percent since the turn of the century, but it took more than a decade of improvements to reach that steady state. The payoff for nuclear investments is long-term and reliable.
Jiyun Zhao, C. P. Tso, K. J. Tseng
Nuclear Technology | Volume 180 | Number 1 | October 2012 | Pages 78-88
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14520
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effects of two-phase-flow modeling on nuclear reactor single-channel stability analysis are investigated with four two-phase-flow models, namely, the homogeneous-equilibrium model, the homogeneous-nonequilibrium model, the nonhomogeneous-equilibrium model, and the nonhomogeneous-nonequilibrium model. The models are applied to hot-channel analyses of a proposed typical supercritical-water-cooled-reactor (SCWR) design. The neutral stability boundaries derived by using the four models are compared and plotted on the traditional subcooling number versus phase change number plane. To ensure proper development of the models, they are benchmarked to the experimental data. It is found that the homogeneous models predict more conservative stability boundaries than the nonhomogeneous models and that the differences of the stability boundaries predicted by all four two-phase-flow models are reduced under higher-pressure conditions.
