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Division Spotlight
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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ANS announces 2025 Presidential Citations
One of the privileges of being president of the American Nuclear Society is awarding Presidential Citations to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding effort in some manner for the benefit of ANS or the nuclear community at large. Citations are conferred twice each year, at the Annual and Winter Meetings.
ANS President Lisa Marshall has named this season’s recipients, who will receive recognition at the upcoming Annual Conference in Chicago during the Special Session on Tuesday, June 17.
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.