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 Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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
Apr 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
May 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Jun Liao, Dan Utley
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 2 | February 2020 | Pages 191-205
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1599614
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Westinghouse Electric Company (Westinghouse) is developing its next generation of high-capacity nuclear power plants (NPPs) based on lead fast reactor (LFR) technology: a Generation IV compact, highly simplified, passively safe, and scalable NPP. In addition to superior economics for enabling competitiveness even in the most challenging electricity market, exceptional safety performance is actively pursued in the design of the plant, leveraging the inherent favorable properties of lead coolant as well as safety features intrinsic in the design. Being that decay heat removal (DHR) is an integral part of any NPP’s safety philosophy, a systematic process of concept selection has been employed across a wide variety of DHR system designs. Among them, air cooling outside of the reactor vessel (RV) is one of the concepts that has been actively evaluated by Westinghouse. In this paper, the use of air cooling in nuclear reactors is discussed together with the identification of benefits and challenges associated with RV air cooling in LFR technology. The heat removal capability of this system is assessed with three computer codes, differing in complexity and suitability to “rapid prototyping” design activities carried out by Westinghouse during different phases of plant design. Though the computer codes were developed separately, the results of the three evaluation models tend to support each other, thus increasing confidence in the information provided to progress the Westinghouse LFR design and establish its safety basis. Additional validation through existing and potentially new test data is foreseen as future work within the Westinghouse LFR program.