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
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2026
Nuclear Technology
June 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2026
Latest News
INL reports findings on unusual quantum behavior of plutonium
Scientists at Idaho National Laboratory have discovered that plutonium hexaboride (PuB6) displays a type of unusual quantum property called a topological Kondo insulating state. Materials with this property are neither typical electricity conductors nor regular insulators. Rather, they have exterior surfaces that strongly conduct electricity and interiors that block electricity.
Floyd E. Dunn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 114 | Number 2 | May 1996 | Pages 147-157
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35245
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As part of a program to obtain realistic, as opposed to excessively conservative, analysis of reactor transients, a multiple-pin treatment for the analysis of intrasubassembly thermal hydraulics has been included in the SASSYS-1 liquid-metal reactor systems analysis code. This new treatment has made possible a whole new level of verification for the code. The code can now predict the steady-state and transient responses of individual thermocouples within instrumented subassemblies in a reactor rather than just predicting average temperatures for a subassembly. Very good agreement has been achieved between code predictions and the experimental measurements of steady-state and transient temperatures and flow rates in the shutdown heat removal tests in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-Il). Detailed multiple-pin calculations for blanket subassemblies in the EBR-II demonstrate that the actual steady-state and transient peak temperatures in these subassemblies are significantly lower than those that would be calculated by simpler models.