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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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A new ANSI/ANS standard for liquid metal fire protection published
ANSI/ANS-54.8-2025, Liquid Metal Fire Protection in LMR Plants, received approval from the American National Standards Institute on September 2 and is now available for purchase.
The 2025 edition is a reinvigoration of the withdrawn ANS-54.8-1988 of the same title. The Advanced Reactor Codes and Standards Collaborative (ARCSC) identified the need for a current version of the standard via an industry survey.
Typical liquid metal reactor designs use liquid sodium as the coolant for both the primary and intermediate heat-transport systems. In addition, liquid sodium and NaK (a mixture of sodium and potassium that is liquid at room temperature) are often used in auxiliary heat-removal systems. Since these liquid metals can react readily with oxygen, water, and other compounds, special precautions must be taken in the design, construction, testing, and maintenance of the sodium/NaK systems to ensure that the potential for leakage is very small.
C. E. DICKERMAN, G. H. GOLDEN, L. E. ROBINSON
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 14 | Number 1 | September 1962 | Pages 30-36
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A26197
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fast reactor fuel sample meltdown experiments have been performed, in the TREAT reactor, with high speed color photography. EBR-II Mark-I and half-length Enrico Fermi Core-A type elements have been studied. In addition, preliminary experiments have been performed on EBR-II size UO2 samples. Sample conditions at the times of failures, types of failures, and rates of emission of material from the elements have been obtained. Course of failure following the initial emission of material is obscured, in the EBR-II sample case, by release of “clouds” of sodium originally present inside the element to effect a thermal bond between fuel and cladding. Photographic results were found to be consistent with previous deductions on sample failures obtained from opaque meltdown experiments.