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
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Securing the advanced reactor fleet
Physical protection accounts for a significant portion of a nuclear power plant’s operational costs. As the U.S. moves toward smaller and safer advanced reactors, similar protection strategies could prove cost prohibitive. For tomorrow’s small modular reactors and microreactors, security costs must remain appropriate to the size of the reactor for economical operation.
Wolfgang Wulff
Nuclear Technology | Volume 159 | Number 3 | September 2007 | Pages 292-309
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3877
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper presents integral methods for simulating two-phase flow transients in complex cooling systems, such as those in nuclear power plants. The methods are designed to simplify presently prevailing thermohydraulics simulation methods without a loss in simulation fidelity. The paper describes the inherent, but unnecessary, complexity of currently used simulation models, explains their inherent shortcomings, and foretells the impact of current code development trends on future capabilities to resolve safety issues in light of growing code complexities and inflexibility. The purpose of the paper is to present simpler alternatives.Integral methods described in the paper facilitate flexibility via computer-automated modularity and simplicity. They provide transparency through analytical methods. Integral methods replace partial by ordinary differential equations and thereby simplify the mathematical model formulation and achieve numerical integration with minimal numerical damping. The models connect important physical characteristic response times with the time step for numerical integration. The mixture model of nonhomogeneous, nonequilibrium two-phase flow, the integral of the volumetric flux divergence equation, and the integrals of the system of coupled loop momentum balances for interconnected loops in complex thermohydraulic systems play central modeling roles. A new and compact formulation of these equations facilitates a computerized system assembly of component models, each one being judiciously selected from a model library to impose the minimum necessary complexity. The method of assembly is based on linear algebra and accommodates any combination of phasic flow directions anywhere in the hydraulic system and at any time.