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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Taewoo Tak, Deokjung Lee, T. K. Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 183 | Number 3 | September 2013 | Pages 427-435
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A19430
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new design of ultralong-cycle fast reactor (UCFR) with power rate of 1000 MW(electric) has been developed based on the strategy of breed and burn. The bottom region of the core with low-enriched uranium plays a role of igniter of the core burning and the upper natural uranium region acts as a blanket for breeding. Fissile materials are bred in the blanket and the active core moves upward at a speed of 5.0 cm/year. Through the core depletion calculation using Monte Carlo code McCARD, it is confirmed that a full-power operation of 60 years without refueling is feasible with respect to nuclear isotopics and criticality. Core performance characteristics have been evaluated in terms of axial/radial power shapes, reactivity feedback coefficients, etc. This design will serve as a base model for further design study of UCFRs using light water reactor spent fuels in the blanket region.