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
Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
P. Pfahl, A. Chambon, J. Groth-Jensen, B. Lauritzen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 200 | Number 1 | March 2026 | Pages S39-S51
Review Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2025.2494182
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents Squirrel, a point-kinetics (PK) solver for calculating transients in a liquid-fueled nuclear reactor. Squirrel is developed within the Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) framework. The modified PK solver accounts for reactivity changes due to changes in the spatial delayed neutron precursor (DNP) distribution by weighting the importance of the position of the delayed neutrons with the adjoint shape function of the reactor, expanding MOOSE PK capabilities to account for the spatial change in the DNP. Squirrel approximates the temperature feedback by weighting the impact of a local variation in temperature with the shape function to estimate the global effect on reactivity. In combination with the MOOSE internal Navier-Stokes module, Squirrel is tested on the National Center for Scientific Research benchmark. The results show that the solver can accurately calculate the change in reactivity induced by the movement of DNPs and the dynamic power change due to the temperature feedback. Squirrel is validated on a simple model of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment. The results agree with the existing literature, showing that the chosen approach can capture the key aspects of reactor dynamics in a molten salt reactor under the assumption of a time-independent shape function.