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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Proving DRACO will deliver
The United States is now closer than it has been in over five decades to launching the first nuclear thermal rocket into space, thanks to DRACO—the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Orbit.
W. M. Stacey, C. L. Stewart, J.-P. Floyd, T. M. Wilks, A. P. Moore, A. T. Bopp, M. D. Hill, S. Tandon, and A. S. Erickson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 187 | Number 1 | July 2014 | Pages 15-43
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-96
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The conceptual design of the subcritical advanced burner reactor (SABR), a 3000-MW(thermal) annular, modular sodium pool–type fast reactor, fueled by metallic transuranic (TRU) fuel processed from discharged light water reactor fuel and driven by a tokamak D-T fusion neutron source based on ITER physics and technology, has been substantially upgraded. Several issues related to the integration of fission and fusion technologies have been addressed, e.g., refueling a modular sodium pool reactor located within the magnetic coil configuration of a tokamak, achieving long-burn quasi-steady-state plasma operation, access for heating and current drive power transmission to a toroidal plasma surrounded by a sodium pool fast reactor, suppression of magnetohydrodynamic effects in a liquid metal coolant flowing in a magnetic field, tritium self-sufficiency in a TRU transmutation reactor, shielding the superconducting magnets from fusion and fission neutrons, etc. A design concept for a SABR that could be deployed within 25 years, based on the IFR/PRISM metal-fuel, sodium pool fast reactor technology and on the ITER fusion physics and technology, is presented. This design concept can be used for realistic fuel cycle, dynamic safety, and other performance analyses of a SABR.