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Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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2021 Student Conference
April 8–10, 2021
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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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NC State celebrates 70 years of nuclear engineering education
An early picture of the research reactor building on the North Carolina State University campus. The Department of Nuclear Engineering is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its nuclear engineering curriculum in 2020–2021. Photo: North Carolina State University
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University has spent the 2020–2021 academic year celebrating the 70th anniversary of its becoming the first U.S. university to establish a nuclear engineering curriculum. It started in 1950, when Clifford Beck, then of Oak Ridge, Tenn., obtained support from NC State’s dean of engineering, Harold Lampe, to build the nation’s first university nuclear reactor and, in conjunction, establish an educational curriculum dedicated to nuclear engineering.
The department, host to the 2021 ANS Virtual Student Conference, scheduled for April 8–10, now features 23 tenure/tenure-track faculty and three research faculty members. “What a journey for the first nuclear engineering curriculum in the nation,” said Kostadin Ivanov, professor and department head.
Arkal Shenoy, John Saurwein, Malcolm Labar, Hankwon Choi, John Cosmopoulos
Nuclear Technology | Volume 178 | Number 2 | May 2012 | Pages 170-185
Technical Paper | Small Modular Reactors / Fission Reactors | dx.doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13558
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) project is being conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate the technical and licensing viability of high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) technology as a CO2 emission-free source of energy to displace the use of natural gas, petroleum, and coal for production of electricity and/or high-temperature process energy for a wide range of industrial applications. The DOE selected the HTGR as the reactor type for the NGNP project primarily because HTGRs can produce heat energy at much higher temperatures than other reactor types due to their use of ceramic, coated-particle fuel, helium coolant, and graphite as the core structural material. The DOE is considering a number of candidate HTGR designs for the NGNP demonstration plant; the DOE or a DOE-industry partnership will ultimately select the design to be licensed and constructed.The HTGR design option being advanced by General Atomics for the NGNP demonstration plant, and for follow-on commercial deployment, is the Steam Cycle Modular Helium Reactor (SC-MHR). The SC-MHR, which is the subject of this paper, uses fuel elements in the form of hexagonal blocks, which are stacked together to form the reactor core. This type of HTGR is referred to as a prismatic HTGR, as opposed to a pebble bed HTGR, which uses billiard ball-size spherical fuel elements. The above-noted generic features of HTGRs coupled with the modular helium reactor design features of the SC-MHR allow for adequate removal of residual heat from the reactor by completely passive means in the event of a loss of forced cooling or loss of coolant pressure. This ensures that the fuel remains below time-at-temperature limits at which fuel damage could occur during such events, thereby ensuring radionuclide retention within the fuel particles. Thus, the safety of the SC-MHR (as well as other modular HTGR designs) is inherent to the design, and the rare, but severe, accidents postulated for light water reactors and other advanced nuclear concepts are not possible with the SC-MHR.It is anticipated that design, licensing, and construction of the SC-MHR demonstration plant could potentially be completed to enable plant operations to begin in 2022.