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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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!
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Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
X. R. Wang, S. Malang, M. S. Tillack, ARIES Team
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 218-222
Divertor & High Heat Flux Components | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12355
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper considers a combination of ARIES modular finger concept and a design with helium channels in a thick plate. Multiple-jet cooling at a back side of a plasma facing surface is employed in this concept. The plasma facing surface is subdivided into a large number of small hexagonal modules, similar to the EU finger concept. Such a modularization reduces thermal stresses and allows therefore maximum surface heat flux of 10 MW/m2 at least. A solution has been found allowing brazing the fingers made of a W-alloy directly into the W-plate, avoiding in this way the connection of dissimilar materials with largely different thermal expansion coefficients. For an increase in reliability, double walled thimbles are used in the most critical region, providing an additional barrier against leaks of the high pressure helium. Thermal-mechanical calculations confirmed the expected high performance of the concept with the maximum allowable heat flux > 10 MW/m2 with all the components staying in the elastic regime. Extensive analyses of non-linear materials responses, such as plastic deformation (yield) are performed to allow the materials to be pushed beyond 3Sm in order to determine the maximum allowable heat flux can be.