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.
Jorge Solís, Maria N. Avramova, Kostadin N. Ivanov
Nuclear Technology | Volume 146 | Number 3 | June 2004 | Pages 267-278
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3505
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A multilevel methodology has been developed to extend the TRAC-BF1/NEM coupled code capability to obtain the transient fuel rod response. The COBRA-TF thermal-hydraulics subchannel analysis code is coupled to TRAC-BF1/NEM in the parallel virtual machine environment. The power information obtained from the nodal expansion method three-dimensional neutronic calculation is used by the hot subchannel analysis module. The TRAC-BF1 thermal-hydraulic system analysis code provides the COBRA-TF thermal-hydraulic boundary conditions. The subchannel analysis module uses this information to recalculate the fluid, thermal, and hydraulics conditions in the most limiting node (axial region of assembly/channel) within the core at each time step. A dynamic algorithm has been developed to identify the most limiting channel and fuel assembly (radially) and axial region (node) based on the current state of the core. Results, obtained with the new parallel multilevel coupled methodology, are presented and discussed for the Mexican Laguna Verde 1 nuclear power plant control rod drop accident.