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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
Graydon L. Yoder, Jr., David G. Morris, Charles B. Mullins, Larry J. Ott
Nuclear Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | February 1983 | Pages 304-313
Technical Paper | Radiation Effects and Their Relationship to Geological Repository / Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT83-A33086
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of steady-state film boiling experiments have been conducted to show the effect of spacer grids on rod bundle heat transfer. Experiments were performed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Thermal-Hydraulic Test Facility, a pressurized water loop containing a 64-rod bundle, of which 60 rods are electrically heated. The bundle is equipped with detailed thermometry around two grids, which allows grid heat transfer effects to be studied. Rod surface temperature data show a 75 to 150 K temperature difference between measurements upstream and downstream of the grids, while heat transfer coefficients increase across the grids by 20%. Twenty to thirty hydraulic diameters are required for these effects to dissipate.