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
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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Latest News
College students help develop waste-measuring device at Hanford
A partnership between Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) and Washington State University has resulted in the development of a device to measure radioactive and chemical tank waste at the Hanford Site. WRPS is the contractor at Hanford for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.
T. Fei, M. J. Driscoll, E. Shwageraus
Nuclear Technology | Volume 186 | Number 3 | June 2014 | Pages 378-389
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-21
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the neutronic feasibility and competitive fuel cycle economics of sodium fast reactors operating with uranium metal (UZr) fuel on a once-through fuel cycle. Uranium startup fast reactors (USFRs) decouple their deployment from that of expensive reprocessing and recycle facilities. This could facilitate and speed up the deployment of conventional fast reactors, which, in their traditional designs, heavily depend on the availability of reprocessing facilities for transuranic fuel production. The uranium requirement and fuel cycle cost of studied USFR core designs are calculated to be comparable to those of typical light water reactors. The main design constraint is the fast neutron fluence imposed on the cladding material, which is required to be below 5.0×1023 n/cm2 even for advanced oxide dispersion strengthened steels. Therefore, moderators need to be inserted in the fuel assemblies to lower the fast neutron flux so that the fuel residence time limited by neutron fluence can be extended to match the reactivity limited fuel residence time. In this study, magnesium oxide is used for reflectors as well as for the moderator.