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 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Long-term strategy calls for up to 10 new reactors in Canada
Canada has launched a Nuclear Energy Strategy, a long-term vision of its nuclear power potential that includes plans to deploy up to 10 new large-scale reactors in the country by 2040.
The June 22 announcement, along with ongoing projects at Darlington and Bruce Power, further confirm Canada's ambitions to expand its nuclear power presence not just domestically but also abroad. Four pillars stand at the heart of the country’s Nuclear Energy Strategy: new nuclear builds in Canada, maintaining its status as a top nuclear supplier and exporter, expanding uranium production, and continuing nuclear fission and fusion innovations.
Ruihan Li, Junyi Chen, Aixin Zhu, Jingang Liang, Ding She, Hongjian Zhang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 11 | November 2025 | Pages 1954-1970
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2025.2471712
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Simulating pebble bed reactors with high fidelity presents significant challenges because of the intricate geometry of the randomly packed pebbles and the requirement for multiphysics coupling. This study introduces an innovative modeling framework that couples neutronics, thermal hydraulics, and pebble flow dynamics of the reactor core. The Monte Carlo (MC) code, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method, and discrete element method (DEM) are used, utilizing the open-source codes OpenMC, OpenFOAM, and LAMMPS, respectively. The core geometry is explicitly constructed for both the MC and the DEM models, while a porous media approach is adopted for the CFD model to manage computational expenses. Enhancements have been made to OpenMC to facilitate data exchange: The core geometry is allowed to change between depletion steps to simulate pebble motion, and a temperature mesh scheme has been developed for efficient temperature distribution transfer. Validations are provided for the models and modifications implemented in this study. As a practical demonstration, a depletion simulation on a full-core model of a High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor–Pebble-Bed Module (HTR-PM) is conducted, explicitly modeling 420 000 randomly packed fuel pebbles. The results reveal detailed distributions of power, temperature, and burnup, all consistent with expected physical behavior, underscoring the effectiveness of our approach.