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Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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!
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Latest News
Can hydrogen be the transportation fuel in an otherwise nuclear economy?
Let’s face it: The global economy should be powered primarily by nuclear power. And it probably will by the end of this century, with a still-significant assist from renewables and hydro. Once nuclear systems are dominant, the costs come down to where gas is now; and when carbon emissions are reduced to a small portion of their present state, it will become obvious that most other sources are only good in niche settings. I mean, why use small modular reactors to load-follow when they can just produce that power instead of buffering it?
H. D. Gougar, A. M. Ougouag, W. K. Terry, K. N. Ivanov
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 165 | Number 3 | July 2010 | Pages 245-269
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE08-89
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents a conceptual design approach for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors using recirculating pebble bed cores. The method employs PEBBED, a reactor physics code specifically designed to solve for the asymptotic burnup state of pebble bed reactors in conjunction with a genetic algorithm to obtain a core with acceptable properties. The uniqueness of the asymptotic core state and the small number of independent parameters that define it suggest that core geometry and fuel cycle can be efficiently optimized toward a specified objective. A novel representation of the distribution of pebbles enables efficient coupling of the burnup and neutron diffusion solvers. Complex pebble recirculation schemes can be expressed in terms of a few parameters that are amenable to manipulation using modern optimization techniques. The user chooses the type and range of core physics parameters that represent the design space. A set of traits, each with acceptable and preferred values expressed by a simple fitness function, is used to evaluate the candidate reactor cores. The stochastic search algorithm automatically drives the generation of core parameters toward the optimal core as defined by the user. For this study, the design of two pebble bed high-temperature reactor concepts subjected to demanding physical constraints demonstrated the technique's efficacy.