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.
Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Morris F. Osborne, Jack L. Collins, Richard A. Lorenz
Nuclear Technology | Volume 78 | Number 2 | August 1987 | Pages 157-169
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A33994
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fission product release from fully irradiated light water reactor fuel under accident conditions and the chemical forms and behavior of the released material have been studied at high temperatures. This work has emphasized release from commercial fuels, but tracer-level tests using specific fission product species have been used in efforts to clarify chemical behavior. The specimens were heated in an induction furnace in flowing steam at temperatures of 1700 to 2300 K. The fractional releases of krypton, iodine, and cesium increased with temperature, reaching maxima of nearly 60% in 20 min. The release of tellurium varied strongly with the extent of cladding oxidation and approached that of cesium for completely oxidized cladding. In addition to some structural material, the major chemical forms in the furnace effluent appeared to include CsI, CsOH, silver, antimony, and tellurides of cesium and tin. The fractional releases of the volatile fission products correlated with the amount of fuel porosity, and the masses of aerosol collected increased with test temperature and oxidation. Comparison of our results with several fission product release models showed agreement ranging from good to poor.