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.
Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2024
Nuclear Technology
August 2024
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Taking shape: Fusion energy ecosystems built with public-private partnerships
It’s possible to describe fusion in simple terms: heat and squeeze small atoms to get abundant clean energy. But there’s nothing simple about getting fusion ready for the grid.
Private developers, national lab and university researchers, suppliers, and end users working toward that goal are developing a range of complex technologies to reach fusion temperatures and pressures, confounded by science and technology gaps linked to plasma behavior; materials, diagnostics, and electronics for extreme environments; fuel cycle sustainability; and economics.
Haihua Zhao, Vincent A. Mousseau
Nuclear Technology | Volume 181 | Number 1 | January 2013 | Pages 184-195
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-14) / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A15766
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents extended forward sensitivity analysis as a method to improve uncertainty quantification. By including the time step and potentially grid spacing as special sensitivity parameters, the forward sensitivity method is extended as one method to quantify numerical errors. Note that by integrating local truncation errors over the whole system through the forward sensitivity analysis process, the generated time step sensitivity information reflects global numerical errors. Discretization errors can be systematically compared against uncertainties due to other physical parameters. This extension makes the forward sensitivity method a much more powerful tool than other tools of its type to help uncertainty quantification. When the relative sensitivity of the time step to other physical parameters is known, the simulation is allowed to run at optimized time steps without affecting the confidence of the physical parameter sensitivity results. The time step forward sensitivity analysis method can also replace traditional time step convergence studies that are a key part of code verification, with much less computational cost. Two well-defined benchmark problems with manufactured solutions are utilized to demonstrate the method.