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
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Shaw H. Bian, Dale E. Bush, Yat Yan Yung, Craig E. Peterson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 122 | Number 2 | May 1998 | Pages 158-169
Technical Paper | RETRAN | doi.org/10.13182/NT98-A2859
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A limiting transient under single-loop operation (SLO) conditions was analyzed to establish the analytical capability to support SLO for Washington Public Power Supply System's WNP-2.In the WNP-2 RETRAN model, each of the two recirculation loops is simulated separately. Under the SLO condition, the unaffected loop provides ~50% core flow with a power of ~72%.Two steady-state cases were run using actual plant data under single-loop conditions to show that the model initializes correctly. The plant data were collected from the cycle 2 SLO. An additional benchmark was performed using the single-recirculation-pump test data collected during the power ascension test in the initial startup phase of WNP-2. The calculated reverse flow of the idle loop compared well with the measured data from the single recirculation pump trip test.After the benchmarking, a limiting transient, i.e., generator load rejection without bypass, was analyzed for cycle 8. The resulting power, flow, and pressure histories were compared with the fuel supplier's results. The Supply System results for the limiting transient showed reasonably good comparison with the fuel supplier's results, with the Supply System model yielding more conservative results. In addition, hot-channel analyses indicate that the SLO thermal limits are bounded by those from the two-loop operations.