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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.
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
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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
Francesca Brini, Leonardo Seccia
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 9 | September 2023 | Pages 2301-2316
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2166754
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper studies the case of shrinking cylindrical gas bubbles acting as a radial piston and generating acceleration waves. The behavior of such waves and their improbable transformation into shocks are illustrated theoretically, as well as through some examples inspired by experimental data. The use of rational extended thermodynamics enables us to highlight the relevance of the dissipation and the possible role played by dynamic pressure and stress tensor in bubble evolution or shock formation. These results constitute an extension and a completion of a previous work dedicated to the analysis of acceleration waves generated in oscillating spherical bubbles.
