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
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Taira Hazama, Akihiro Kitano, Y. Kishimoto
Nuclear Technology | Volume 179 | Number 2 | August 2012 | Pages 250-265
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A14097
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Japanese prototype fast breeder reactor Monju restarted its system startup test in May 2010 after a 14-year interruption. In the first stage of the test, reactor physics parameters have been measured at a zero power level.The present paper describes the evaluation of the criticality data. The best-estimate value and its uncertainty are evaluated as accurately as possible, following the guidelines recommended by the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project.The restart core contains 1.5 wt% of 241Am, which is three times more than the previous test. To extract the influence of the 241Am accumulation on calculation accuracy, criticality data obtained in the previous test are evaluated at the same level of detail.The calculation accuracy is investigated with four major nuclear data libraries. It is confirmed that the accuracy is within 0.3% k/k, a 2 value of experimental uncertainty, with JENDL-3.3, JENDL-4.0, and ENDF/B-VII.0. The reactivity change due to the 241Pu decay can be simulated within an accuracy of 1% with JENDL-4.0 and JEFF-3.1.