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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 15–18, 2026
Phoenix, AZ|Arizona Grand Resort & Spa
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
Fuel loading process begins at Palisades
The Palisades nuclear power plant has drawn closer to restart, as plant staff began the process of loading fuel into the reactor vessel on Sunday morning.
The commencement of fuel loading places the Covert, Mich., facility in Mode 6—or the refueling stage—under the plant’s technical specifications, plant owner and operator Holtec International said in a news release. The Palisades reactor core consists of 204 fuel assemblies that include new fuel and partially used fuel from the plant’s most recent operating cycles. According to Holtec, the fuel loading is being conducted in accordance with plant procedures and technical specifications.
Carolina Bourdot Dutra, Luiz Aldeia Machado, Elia Merzari
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 7 | July 2024 | Pages 1439-1454
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2246778
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) is a promising concept chosen in the Generation IV International Forum as a possible design for pursuing the sustainable use of nuclear energy. Its core consists of multiple hydraulically isolated assemblies, with a tightly packed triangular lattice array of fuel pins enclosed in a hexagonal duct present within each assembly. Helical wire spacers are wrapped along the axis of the rods to maintain a gap between them, inducing a secondary flow, increasing the channel mixing, and enhancing convective heat transfer. In this study, a direct numerical simulation campaign is conducted for a simplified 7-pin wire wrapper geometry, with Reynolds numbers ranging from = 1000 to 10 000 and a Prandtl number of = 0.005, to investigate heat transfer in low-flow conditions. The wire wrapper case is compared to a bare bundle case with seven pins. The results are discussed, and heat transfer predictions are compared between our numerical results and classic correlations. An anisotropy invariant map is obtained for the above-mentioned cases, and turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent heat flux budgets are computed and analyzed. Our findings provide unique insights into the flow behavior within a wire-wrapped bundle.