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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
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!
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Latest News
Ariz. governor vetoes “fast track” bill for nuclear
Gov. Katie Hobbs put the brakes on legislation that would have eliminated some of Arizona’s regulations and oversight of small modular reactors, technology that is largely under consideration by data centers and heavy industrial power users.
Gary R. Smolen, Sidney R. Bierman, Nobuo Fukumura
Nuclear Technology | Volume 107 | Number 3 | September 1994 | Pages 285-303
Technical Paper | Nuclear Criticality Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT94-A35009
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Critical experiments were conducted with organic- and water-moderated arrays of mixed plutonium and uranium oxide fuel pins. The organic solution consisted of 32 vol% tributyl phosphate and 68 vol% normal paraffin hydrocarbon. The square lattice pitches ranged from 0.761 to 1.935 cm. A direct comparison between the reactivity of the two systems was not possible, because most of the experiments conducted with water were performed ∼7yr before the organic solution experiments. At the two lattice pitches where a direct comparison could be made, based on the number of fuel pins required for criticality, it was determined that the reactivity of the water-moderated system was the same or slightly higher than the organic-moderated system. These data were used in calculational studies performed independently at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation of Japan (PNC) with the KENO-IV computer code. A 27-energy-group cross-section library derived from the Evaluated Nuclear Data File B-Version IV (ENDF/B-IV) was used in both studies. The results of these analyses are in good agreement with the experimental results with calculated keff’s ranging from 0.991 to 1.014. The average calculated keff’s based on the ORNL and PNC analyses were 1.001 and 1.004, respectively. No trends in calculated keff with any parameters were identified.