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.
David L. Aumiller, Edward T. Tomlinson, William G. Clarke
Nuclear Technology | Volume 137 | Number 3 | March 2002 | Pages 213-227
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT137-213
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The RELAP5-3D (version bt) computer program was used to assess a General Electric level swell experiment. The primary goal of the new assessment models was to faithfully represent the experimental facility and instrumentation. In developing the new models, a nonphysical representation of the vessel heads in a previous assessment was found. This distortion resulted in predictions that closely matched the experimental data, but were in error. The new assessment also highlighted an instability in the calculation of interfacial drag. To explore this issue, analyses were performed using three different interfacial drag correlations appropriate for large diameter pipes and/or vessels. The results of this study show that the default RELAP5-3D interfacial drag package compares most favorably with the experimental data. Additionally, a numerical instability was uncovered with the analysis performed using the Gardner correlation and was traced to the calculation of bubble diameter in the bubbly flow regime.