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
Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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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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.
Koroush Shirvan, Mujid Kazimi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 184 | Number 3 | December 2013 | Pages 261-273
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A24984
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Increasing the economic competitiveness of nuclear energy is vital to its future. One way to reduce the cost of the plant is by extracting more power from the same volume. A scoping study is conducted to maximize the power density in boiling water reactors (BWRs) under the constraints of using fuel with traditional materials and cylindrical geometry, and enrichments below 5% to enable its licensability with no changes to present facilities. An optimization search over all other design parameters yields a BWR with high power density (BWR-HD) at a power level of 5000 MW(thermal), equivalent to a 26% uprated Advanced BWR (ABWR), the most recently built version of BWR. The BWR-HD utilizes about the same number of wider fuel assemblies, with 16 × 16 pin arrays and 35% shorter active fuel than the 10 × 10 assemblies of the ABWR. The fuel rod diameter and pitch are also reduced to just over 70% of the ABWR values. Thus, it is possible to increase the power density and specific power by 65% while maintaining the nominal ABWR minimum critical power ratio margin. The optimum core pressure is found to be the same as the current 7.2 MPa. The core exit quality is increased to 19% from the ABWR nominal exit quality of 15%. The pin linear heat generation rate is 20% lower, and the core pressure drop and mass of uranium are 30% lower. The BWR-HD's fuel, modeled with FRAPCON 3.4, showed similar performance to the ABWR pin design. This results in 20% reduced operations and maintenance and capital costs per unit energy, but total fuel cycle cost similar to that of the 18-month ABWR fuel cycle.