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Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Ryota Katano
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 193 | Number 4 | April 2019 | Pages 431-439
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2018.1528803
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The linear combination method is proposed to reduce the higher order mode (HOM) effect on the measurement of the prompt neutron decay constant using the α-fitting method. Conventional α-fitting utilizes the pulsed neutron source and estimates the prompt neutron decay constant by fitting the neutron counts at a single detector after pulse injection with a single exponential function. The proposed method reduces the spatial HOM effect with linear combination of the neutron counts at multiple detectors. For verification, we applied the conventional method and the proposed method to the analytical solution of the diffusion theory and the Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the prompt neutron decay constant of a one-dimensional infinite slab. Comparison of these results indicates that the proposed method enables estimation with the reduced HOM effect as opposed to the conventional method. Through the verification, we confirmed that the proposed method can be a candidate for a measurement method of the prompt neutron decay constant.
