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.
Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
Meeting Spotlight
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
June 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
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
Nicholas Crowder, Joomyung Lee, Abhinav Gupta, Kevin Han, Saran Bodda, Christopher Ritter
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 1 | October 2022 | Pages S260-S277
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2055705
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Designing piping systems for nuclear power plants involves engineers from multiple disciplines (i.e., thermal hydraulics, mechanical engineering, and structural/seismic) and close coordination with the contractors who build the plant. Any design changes during construction need to be carefully communicated and managed with all stakeholders in order to assess risks associated with the design changes. To allow the quick assessment of building and piping design changes through a streamlined building-piping coupled analysis, this paper presents a novel interoperability solution that converts bidirectionally between building information models (BIMs) and pipe stress models. Any design changes during construction that are shown in an as-built BIM are automatically converted into a pipe stress model. Any further design changes due to building-piping interaction analyses are converted back to the BIM for the contractor and other designers to access the latest model. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the bidirectional conversion that allows an integrated coupled analysis of the building-piping system to account for their interactions.