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
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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
Oct 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
November 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
Amazon provides update on its Washington project with X-energy
A year ago this month, Amazon led a $500 million investment in X-energy, alongside Citadel founder Ken Griffin, the University of Michigan, and other investors. In addition to that financing, Amazon pledged to support the development of an initial four-unit, 320-MW project with Energy Northwest in Washington state.
F. L. Carlsen, Jr., E. S. Bomar, W. O. Harms
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 20 | Number 2 | October 1964 | Pages 180-200
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE64-A28932
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Progress is reported in several areas of development of fueled graphite containing coated particles for nonpurged gas-cooled reactor systems. The sol-gel process has been modified for making spherical particles of both thorium/uranium carbide and thorium/uranium oxide suitable for coating. Equipment has been assembled and methods have been developed for deposition of pyrolytic-carbon coatings under well-controlled conditions. Damage to coated particles during fabrication into a graphite matrix depends on the molding pressure and the volumetric content of coated particles. Vendor-supplied coated particles and fueled graphite spheres have been evaluated extensively in both in- and out-of-reactor tests. Duplex- and triplex-coated particles have excellent fission-gas retention at 2050 F to burnups of 15 at.%. Fueled graphite spheres containing coated particles have good irradiation performance, but the fission-gas-release rates are somewhat higher than for unsupported coated particles. Fueled graphite spheres react with water vapor about as rapidly as do Speer Mod-2 and ATJ grades of graphite. The diffusion rates in pyrolytic carbon are the same for uranium, thorium and protactinium. The diffusion rates in the direction parallel to the deposition plane are much higher than those in the perpendicular direction.