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.
Yea-Kuang Chan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 200 | Number 1 | October 2017 | Pages 80-92
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1338879
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The baseline and verification performance tests based on American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Performance Test Code 6 (PTC 6) for Maanshan Nuclear Power Station (MNPS) Unit 1 were successfully conducted prior to and after the replacement of a high-pressure turbine rotor. In order to verify that the actual improvement in electrical output resulting from this replacement meets the vendor’s guarantee, measurement uncertainty analysis of the thermal performance test was calculated. Two verification performance tests show that the deviation for the corrected heat rates of the two tests differs by only 0.11%, which therefore meets the ASME PTC 6 requirements where the deviation between two tests should be within 0.25%. Thus, the quality of the test results is acceptable. After accounting for the test uncertainty, the test results demonstrated that the improvement in gross electrical output compared to the baseline performance test is between 12.57 and 22.63 MW(electric), which is higher than the contract guarantee of 10.0 MW(electric). Moreover, the major parameters of the turbine cycle measured during verification performance tests have established a reference base for monitoring the plant operating performance and provide useful information to turbine cycle design for a nuclear power plant.