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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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!
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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
Haihua Zhao, Lambert Fick, Alexander Heald, Quan Zhou, Samuel Richesson, Noah Sutton, Brandon Haugh
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 5 | May 2023 | Pages 813-839
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2106724
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To meet the Kairos Power (KP) Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactor (FHR) (KP-FHR) development and commercialization schedules, the System Analysis Module (SAM), which is an advanced systems code for Generation IV liquid-cooled reactors developed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), has been selected as the basis for the development of the KP-FHR systems code KP-SAM. This allows for an accelerated joint development effort between the KP and ANL teams. This paper presents a general overview of the KP-SAM development process, its current status, completed verification, and ongoing validation efforts. KP-SAM development follows the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Evaluation Model Development and Assessment Process framework. SAM is a high-order fully implicit transient systems code written in C++. The SAM software design, major physical models, and Jacobian Free Newton Krylov–based numerical methods are briefly discussed. KP-SAM has matured enough to be used for the unvalidated demonstration safety analysis for the low-power KP-FHR test reactor (Hermes) as part of Preliminary Safety Analysis Report work. By following the guidance of an internal KP-FHR thermal fluid Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table report, some of the most important separate-effects-test validations were completed for the first iteration. A scaled integral-effects test is under detailed design and will be built in 2022 to provide key data to validate KP-SAM for licensing safety analysis.
