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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS 2025)
May 4–8, 2025
Huntsville, AL|Huntsville Marriott and the Space & Rocket Center
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
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
First concrete marks start of safety-related construction for Hermes test reactor
Kairos Power announced this morning that safety-related nuclear construction has begun at the Oak Ridge, Tenn., site where the company is building its Hermes low-power test reactor. Hermes, a scaled demonstration of Kairos Power’s fluoride salt–cooled, high-temperature reactor technology, became the first non–light water reactor to receive a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December 2023. The company broke ground at the site in July 2024.
Tsendsuren Amarjargal, Jun Nishiyama, Toru Obara
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 4 | April 2023 | Pages 711-718
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2129952
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of this study is to clarify the possibility of designing a small rotational fuel-shuffling breed-and-burn fast reactor (RFBB) with nitride fuel and sodium coolant based on neutronic and heat removal analyses. In these reactor analyses, uranium nitride fuel with a helium bond and sodium coolant was applied to the RFBB, whose thermal power is 450 MW. The structural and cladding materials are oxide dispersion-strengthened ferritic steel. Calculation results showed that the core with rotational fuel shuffling achieved an equilibrium state at criticality near unity, and the average discharge burnup of discharged fuel was 187 MWd/kg heavy metal. In this equilibrium state, reactor characteristics, such as neutron flux and the power profile, were almost stable, and the maximum displacements-per-atom value was slightly higher than 650. A steady-state heat removal analysis was performed for the hottest channel in the core, revealing that the fuel temperature was lower than the operational limit temperature and that the cladding temperature was lower than its melting temperature. However, it was slightly higher than the suggested value of 600°C for retaining nitride fuel integrity for high burnup. It was shown that the core radius could be smaller than that of the metal-fueled core of the previous study.