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
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2026
Nuclear Technology
September 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
LLNL, Ampera partner to develop thorium-based TRISO fuel
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has formed a strategic partnership with Ampera to develop the company’s nuclear fuel concept through a project named THUNDER, for Thorium Unimodal Droplet Ejection for Reactors.
The focus of THUNDER is fabricating TRISO made with kernels of thorium rather than the usual uranium. LLNL and Ampera will evaluate and optimize liquid metal–jetting technology to produce highly uniform, spherical kernels of thorium-232 for later processing into TRISO fuel.
Naphtali M. Mokgalapa, Tushar K. Ghosh, Robert V. Tompson, Sudarshan K. Loyalka
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 3 | June 2016 | Pages 353-368
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-106
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A methodology is developed to measure the adhesion force and the work of adhesion between aerosols generated in very-high-temperature reactors (VHTRs) and interacting with structural materials. The method uses an interactive system of a silver particle interacting with Haynes 230 (H230) surfaces, compares the measured data with theoretical values, and uses an atomic force microscope in an air environment glove box with ambient temperature of 20.27°C and relative humidity of 34.97%. The adhesion force data are obtained for a silver particle interacting with H230 under four different surface conditions including “as received” and after oxidation for 5, 10, and 15 min, respectively. It was found that the JKR (Johnson-Kendall-Roberts) theory predicted values that were up to three orders of magnitude higher than the experimental data. In contrast, the inclusion of surface roughness from both the particle and H230 samples in the calculations produced results that are one order of magnitude higher than the experimental data. These comparisons provide insight into the significant influence that surface roughness has on adhesion force. A range of values of 0.02 to 0.3 μN was obtained from the adhesion force distributions of measured data that can be used as bounds on forces that can be produced in a silver-H230 interactive system.