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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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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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Latest News
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
Huayang Zhang, Bin Zhong, Huayun Shen, Li Cheng, Jinhong Li
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 10 | October 2022 | Pages 1236-1246
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2070386
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Pinhole imaging is an important test technique to obtain information on the spatial distribution of the radiation field in the target region and has been widely used in nuclear physics and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Coded-aperture, able to maintain good resolution as well as enhancing signal strength, has become a more frequently used method than pinhole imaging in experimental studies. Thus, implementing Monte Carlo simulations of coded-aperture imaging will improve coded-aperture design, image reconstruction, and other related works. However, the current international mainstream Monte Carlo transport simulation programs do not possess the ability to directly simulate coded-aperture imaging. This paper develops a relatively complete coded-aperture imaging simulation function on the Neutron Photon Transport System code based on the next-event estimation method. With the application of Monte Carlo simulation techniques, such as variance reduction and rejection sampling, it is capable of simulating coded-aperture accurately, flexibly, and efficiently, including problems of multiple shapes and even irregular geometry. The results are consistent with combined pinhole imaging, and the computational efficiency has been improved significantly.