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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!
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Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
Calvin C. Silverstein
Nuclear Technology | Volume 1 | Number 2 | April 1965 | Pages 145-150
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT65-A20481
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A thermodynamic engine which converts heat generated by a radioisotope into mechanical energy pulses is described. The mechanical energy pulses are produced by first heating a curved bimetallic disk to a temperature at which it becomes unstable and reverses curvature and then by cooling the disk to a temperature where it again becomes unstable and assumes its original curvature. The initial disk curvature is determined by the operating temperature limits desired and physical properties of the disk components. An approximate theoretical analysis of engine performance has been carried out. For a mean disk temperature of 434° F (223° C), a maximum engine temperature of 750° F (399° C), a minimum engine temperature of 68° F (20° C), and a disk temperature change of 50° F (28° C), an ideal output of 10 W-s/cycle appears attainable from an engine with the following characteristics: disk thickness 0.075 in. (1.91 mm), disk diameter 3.5 in. (8.9 cm), radioisotope thermal power 150 W, and cycle time 11 s.
