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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Supathorn Phongikaroon, Steven D. Herrmann, Michael F. Simpson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 174 | Number 1 | April 2011 | Pages 85-93
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT174-85
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this study, a diffusion-based kinetic model essential for design and operational analysis of spent nuclear fuel reduction has been developed. The model considers the cathode side of the system to be rate limiting and deals with diffusion of lithium metal through the basket loaded with uranium oxide (UO2 or U3O8). Faraday's law was implemented into the model to observe the electrochemical effect on the model. Solutions with different conditions are developed, and detailed results are presented. These solutions were compared against experimental bench scale data. At high operating current conditions (I > 0.8 A), the model fits the data well. The fitting resulted in estimated effective lithium diffusion coefficients for high and low void fraction UO2 crushed fuels of 8.5 × 10-4 cm2/s and 2.2 × 10-4 cm2/s, respectively. The effective diffusion coefficient for U3O8 is estimated to be 8.6 × 10-4 cm2/s. In some experiments, a porous magnesium oxide basket was used for containing the U3O8. It was estimated that the lithium diffusion coefficient through this magnesia basket is 3.3 × 10-5 cm2/s.