ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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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Nuclear Technology
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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.
C. W. Forsberg, J. D. Stempien, M. J. Minck, R. G. Ballinger
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 3 | June 2016 | Pages 295-313
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-87
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fluoride salt–cooled High-temperature Reactors (FHRs) are a new type of power reactor that delivers heat to the power cycle between 600°C and 700°C. The FHR uses High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) graphite-matrix coated-particle fuel with failure temperatures of 1650°C. The FHR coolants are clean fluoride salts that have melting points above 350°C and boiling points above 1400°C. This combination may enable the design of a large FHR that will not have significant fuel failure and thus radionuclide releases to the environment even in a beyond-design-basis accident (BDBA) that include failure of all cooling systems, the vessel, and containment systems. A first effort has been undertaken to understand FHR BDBAs and develop an FHR BDBA system to prevent major fuel failure if an accident occurs in a large FHR.
Four design features limit BDBA fuel temperatures to lower than fuel failure temperatures. First, there is a large temperature drop to transfer decay heat from the fuel to the environment in a BDBA. Second, the large temperature difference between normal operating temperatures and fuel failure temperatures allows the use of increasing temperatures in an accident to degrade the insulation system and other barriers that prevent efficient transfer of decay heat from the reactor core to the environment in an accident. Third, the silo around the reactor vessel contains a BDBA salt that in an accident heats up, melts, and partly floods the silo to improve heat transfer from fuel to the environment. Fourth, the fuel and coolant retain fission products and actinides at high temperatures.