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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
World Bank, IAEA partner to fund nuclear energy
The World Bank and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement last week to cooperate on the construction and financing of advanced nuclear projects in developing countries, marking the first partnership since the bank ended its ban on funding for nuclear energy projects.
Jens T. Birkholzer, Sumit Mukhopadhyay, Yvonne Y. W. Tsang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 148 | Number 2 | November 2004 | Pages 138-150
Technical Paper | High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3554
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Predicting the amount of water that may seep into waste emplacement drifts is important for assessing the performance of the proposed geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The repository would be located in thick, partially saturated, fractured volcanic tuff that will be heated to above-boiling temperatures as a result of heat generation from the decay of nuclear waste. Since infiltrating water will be subject to vigorous boiling for a significant time period, the superheated rock zone (i.e., rock temperature above the boiling point of water) can form an effective vaporization barrier that reduces the possibility of water arrival at emplacement drifts. This paper analyzes the behavior of episodic preferential flow events that penetrate the hot fractured rock, evaluate the impact of such flow behavior on the effectiveness of the vaporization barrier, and discuss the implications for the performance assessment of the repository. Our analysis demonstrates that no liquid water is expected to arrive at emplacement drifts during the first several hundred years after waste emplacement, when the rock temperature is high in the drift vicinity and boiling conditions exist in a sufficiently large region above the drifts.