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
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Aug 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Ho Nieh nominated to the NRC
Nieh
President Trump recently nominated Ho Nieh for the role of commissioner in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission through the remainder of a term that will expire June 30, 2029.
Nieh has been the vice president of regulatory affairs at Southern Nuclear since 2021, though he is currently working as a loaned executive at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, where he has been for more than a year.
Nieh’s experience: Nieh started his career at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, where he worked primarily as a nuclear plant engineer and contributed as a civilian instructor in the U.S. Navy’s Nuclear Power Program.
From there, he joined the NRC in 1997 as a project engineer. In more than 19 years of service at the organization, he served in a variety of key leadership roles, including division director of Reactor Projects, division director of Inspection and Regional Support, and director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
Cole Gentry, G. Ivan Maldonado, Ondrej Chvala, Bojan Petrovic
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 187 | Number 2 | August 2017 | Pages 166-184
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2017.1312931
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study presents a thorough parametric neutronic analysis of a plate-based tristructual isotropic (TRISO) fuel particle bearing liquid salt–cooled reactor assembly. The analyses presented investigated the effects of altering fuel enrichment, packing fraction, plate region thicknesses, assembly structure thicknesses, assembly size, numbers of plates per assembly, use of burnable poison materials, replacement of assembly and plate carbon material with silicon carbide, and use of uranium nitride fuel kernels. The effects or trends observed included reactivity behavior, discharge burnup, cycle length, and other key design parameters such as moderator temperature coefficients, coolant density coefficients, control blade worth, and impacts upon power peaking (i.e., power and flux distributions).
This study is based upon two-dimensional lattice physics calculations involving the SERPENT 2 code and by using the nonlinear reactivity model as a reasonable tool for predicting discharge burnup. The reported results show that the system’s reactivity can be significantly altered by varying these design parameters, thus providing a starting point for future design optimization studies, and it is understood that future studies will need to be expanded to equilibrium full core analysis for more complete and accurate design and safety assessments, which is also a work in progress.