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
Jul 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
August 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The human factor in licensing and operating the next generation of nuclear plants
As human factors specialists working at the intersection of human performance and nuclear operations, we are witnessing one of the nuclear sector’s most significant transitions in decades. The emergence of small modular reactors, microreactors, and other advanced designs is reshaping the industry’s landscape. Digital instrumentation and controls, passive safety systems, and increased automation are creating opportunities for greater safety margins and more flexible operation. These same features also fundamentally redefine what it means to “operate” a nuclear plant. Interactions among human roles, automation, and passive systems shape how people maintain awareness, exercise judgment, and intervene when necessary. These developments affect both operational realities and the regulatory foundations on which nuclear safety is built.
Geethpriya Palaniswaamy, Sudarshan K. Loyalka
Nuclear Technology | Volume 156 | Number 1 | October 2006 | Pages 29-38
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3771
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear aerosols can originate from severe core damage in light water reactors, core disruptive accidents in fast reactors, nuclear accidents during nuclear material transport, at waste disposal sites, or from explosions and can evolve under natural transport processes as well as under the influence of engineered safety features. Such aerosols can be hazardous for the equipment inside the reactor and when leaked to the environment pose potential risks to the public. However, the computation of aerosol evolution is complicated, and an exploration of the direct simulation Monte Carlo technique to elucidate the role of various physical phenomena that influence the evolution, and eventually to help develop a production computer program, has been undertaken. We have extended here the previous work in important new directions by including most coagulation mechanisms such as Brownian, gravitational, and turbulence. We have also explored the Metropolis algorithm for sampling particles. We have found that the Metropolis algorithm permits efficient simulation of a much larger number of particles because it does not require precomputation and periodic update of the collisional matrix after each collision, unlike the direct sampling method.