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 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 15–18, 2026
Phoenix, AZ|Arizona Grand Resort & Spa
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.
R. C. Erdmann, F. L. Leverenz, Jr., G. S. Lellouche
Nuclear Technology | Volume 53 | Number 3 | June 1981 | Pages 374-380
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel Cycle Education Module / Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT81-A32645
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the specific reactors evaluated in the Reactor Safety Study (WASH-1400), quantified uncertainties in the calculated consequences and probabilities were reported, along with median estimates. The WASH-1400 evaluation of early fatalities gave these uncertainties as multiplicative factors of (, 4) on consequences and (, 5) on probabilities. Accounting for factors that were not considered, these uncertainties are better stated as multiplicative factors of (, 15) and (, 20) for consequences and probabilities, respectively. In addition to this change in uncertainty, the median values of early fatalities reported in WASH-1400 may be too high by factors of 5 for consequences and 12 for probabilities. Thus, a new upper bound is found that is less than that stated in WASH-1400.