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
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Oct 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
November 2025
Nuclear Technology
October 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The current status of heat pipe R&D
Idaho National Laboratory under the Department of Energy–sponsored Microreactor Program recently conducted a comprehensive phenomena identification and ranking table (PIRT) exercise aimed at advancing heat pipe technology for microreactor applications.
M. Pellegrini, H. Endo, E. Merzari, H. Ninokata
Nuclear Technology | Volume 181 | Number 1 | January 2013 | Pages 144-156
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-14) / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15763
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effect of stratification on the flow in bounded geometries is studied through computational fluid dynamics and two different modelings of the turbulent heat flux: constant turbulent Prandtl number and Algebraic Heat Flux Model (AHFM). The main feature of the work is evaluation of the effect of buoyancy on the thermal quantities, velocity field, and related pressure drop. For evaluation of the turbulent heat flux and temperature field, AHFM has been demonstrated to be superior to the simple eddy diffusivity approach. However, serious concerns remain for the prediction of the velocity field in both isothermal and nonisothermal conditions, since greater uncertainties for the obtained pressure drop and related Fanning friction factor can be introduced. Incremental pressure drop is also investigated in conditions deviating from fully developed flows, in order to study stratification effects qualitatively using an engineering method.