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
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
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.
S. Reyes, J. F. Latkowski, J. Gomez del Rio, J. Sanz
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 2 | March 2001 | Pages 941-945
Safety and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963361
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
SOMBRERO (solid moving breeder reactor) is a conceptual design of a 1000 MWe laser-driven inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plant. An important goal of the original study was the achievement of a safe and environmentally attractive reactor of relatively simple design. However, recent work has pointed out some key issues involving safety that were not completely addressed at that time, and which need to be reviewed in order to maximize the SOMBRERO design attractiveness.
The present work uses a set of computer codes traditionally used for magnetic fusion safety studies (CHEMCON, MELCOR), which have been adopted and adapted for use in IFE safety analysis. Here we consider a loss of flow accident (LOFA) combined with a simultaneous loss of vacuum accident (LOVA) produced by a breach in the confinement building. Although confinement failure would be a very unlikely event, it must be postulated in order to produce significant off-site doses. The CHEMCON code is used to simulate the long-term thermal transient in the reactor structures resulting from oxidation and radioactive decay heat. MELCOR is used to simulate a wide range of physical phenomena including thermal-hydraulics, heat transfer, aerosol physics and fusion product release and transport. As specified in the DOE Fusion Safety Standards, an off-site dose below 1 rem (10 mSv) is the requirement to avoid public sheltering and evacuation. The SOMBRERO accident analysis results will be evaluated according to this limit and suggestions will be made for improvements and future work.
