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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Tyler Sumner, Tingzhou Fei
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 1 | October 2022 | Pages S309-S322
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.2009982
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) is a fast spectrum test reactor currently being developed in the United States under the direction of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy. Safety analysis of the conceptual VTR design is being performed using the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 fast reactor safety analysis code with a model representing the reactor core, primary and intermediate heat transport systems, reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system, and reactor protection system. The system’s response and safety performance has been evaluated for a wide spectrum of event initiators and accident sequences. This paper focuses on the results for several unprotected transient scenarios where the reactor protection system is assumed to fail to take any action. Even without the reactor protection system, the strong reactivity feedback response of the core reduces power to safe levels matching the available heat rejection. In the station blackout transient, the primary heat transport system is able to transition quickly and effectively to natural circulation. At the current stage of design, transient simulation results for the VTR indicate that large safety margins exist for many event initiators, including the unprotected transients presented in this paper.