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.
Robert Jeraj, Tomaz Zagar, Matjaz Ravnik
Nuclear Technology | Volume 137 | Number 3 | March 2002 | Pages 169-180
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3266
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Monte Carlo calculations of a criticality experiment with burned fuel on the TRIGA Mark II research reactor are presented. The main objective was to incorporate burned fuel composition calculated with the WIMSD4 deterministic code into the MCNP4B Monte Carlo code and compare the calculated keff with the measurements. The criticality experiment was performed in 1998 at the "Jozef Stefan" Institute TRIGA Mark II reactor in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with the same fuel elements and loading pattern as in the TRIGA criticality benchmark experiment with fresh fuel performed in 1991. The only difference was that in 1998, the fuel elements had on average burnup of ~3%, corresponding to 1.3-MWd energy produced in the core in the period between 1991 and 1998. The fuel element burnup accumulated during 1991-1998 was calculated with the TRIGLAV in-house-developed fuel management two-dimensional multigroup diffusion code. The burned fuel isotopic composition was calculated with the WIMSD4 code and compared to the ORIGEN2 calculations. Extensive comparison of burned fuel material composition was performed for both codes for burnups up to 20% burned 235U, and the differences were evaluated in terms of reactivity. The WIMSD4 and ORIGEN2 results agreed well for all isotopes important in reactivity calculations, giving increased confidence in the WIMSD4 calculation of the burned fuel material composition. The keff calculated with the combined WIMSD4 and MCNP4B calculations showed good agreement with the experimental values. This shows that linking of WIMSD4 with MCNP4B for criticality calculations with burned fuel is feasible and gives reliable results.