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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
April 2026
Latest News
MARVEL PDSA approval could serve as blueprint
MARVEL, the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation project at Idaho National Laboratory, has had its preliminary documented safety analysis approved by the Department of Energy, marking a milestone in its development and serving as a potential outline for other microreactors in development.
H. Frewer, W. Keller, R. Pruschek
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 90 | Number 4 | August 1985 | Pages 411-426
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE85-4
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The modular high-temperature reactor (HTR-M) is characterized by the use of standardized reactor, heat transfer, and loop components. One or more primary circuit units make up the nuclear steam-generating system (or heat-generating system) of a HTR-M power plant. The core of the helium-cooled HTR-M consists of a randomly packed bed of spherical fuel elements (pebble bed reactor). The characteristic design of the HTR-M core ensures that permissible core temperatures are not exceeded, even if all cooling systems fail. Today, HTR-M power plants can already be applied in the combined generation of electricity, process steam, and/or district heat. In the near future the HTR-M can be used as a heat source for processing plants in the chemical industry, e.g., for methane cracking, coal gasification and similar chemical processes.