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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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!
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Latest News
G7 pledges support for nuclear at Italy meeting
The Group of Seven (G7) recommitted its support for nuclear energy in the countries that opt to use it at a Ministerial Meeting on Climate in Italy last month.
In a statement following the April meeting, the group committed to support multilateral efforts to strengthen the resilience of nuclear supply chains, referencing the goal set by 25 countries during last year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai to triple global nuclear generating capacity by 2050.
Dennis Nikitaev, L. Dale Thomas
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 1 | December 2022 | Pages S96-S106
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.2021768
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Water, ammonia, and other volatiles that can be used for propellant have been found on the Moon, and the technology that will be used to extract them has been laboratory tested. One of the considered propulsion systems for a crewed mission to Mars is nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP). However, current reference missions consider hydrogen as the main propellant, which is technologically difficult to store. Electrolysis units are required to process the lunar water to separate it into oxygen and hydrogen, which is only 1/8 of the mass of water mined. Due to these challenges, a preliminary analysis of alternative propellant nuclear thermal propulsion (A-NTP) expander cycle engines was made. A-NTP engine models that produced 25 000 lbf of thrust, which is comparable to the baseline hydrogen NTP engines, were constructed in Simulink for preliminary analysis, which yielded an Isp of 320.4 s for water and 381.6 s for ammonia. Although this Isp is lower than the most efficient chemical engines, since water and ammonia are used directly and are stored as such, a propellant tank volume decrease of up to 76.1% for water and 69.5% for ammonia is possible. This will decrease the number of launches, given that the tanks are not fully tanked at time of launch and lunar resources are used to fill the tanks completely.