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
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
May 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Sam Altman steps down as Oklo board chair
Advanced nuclear company Oklo Inc. has new leadership for its board of directors as billionaire Sam Altman is stepping down from the position he has held since 2015. The move is meant to open new partnership opportunities with OpenAI, where Altman is CEO, and other artificial intelligence companies.
Timothy Ironman, James Tulenko, Ghatu Subhash
Nuclear Technology | Volume 200 | Number 2 | November 2017 | Pages 144-158
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1360714
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The viability of spark plasma sintering (SPS) for fabrication of industrial-grade nuclear fuel pellets is explored by utilizing die designs for single- and multiple-pellet manufacturing. Traditional UO2 pellets were also manufactured by systematically varying processing temperature and pressure as needed for single- and multiple-pellet fabrication. The pellets were then qualified against commercial fuel specifications for density, shape, microstructure, and surface flaws. Pellets produced one at a time met all commercial specifications except for grain size. Pellets produced in batches of two, four, and eight pellets showed suboptimal density indicating that further changes to sintering conditions are warranted. Additionally, commonly used graphite tooling for pellet fabrication was shown to be ineffective in producing large numbers of fuel pellets, as the die and punches were shown to undergo severe wear in each run thus decreasing the reliability of the tooling for production of pellets as per the specification. Finally, additional discussion is provided for identifying the avenues for scale-up of SPS to meet the current commercial demand of 400 million pellets/year. These studies are viewed as first step toward assessing the ability of SPS technology to meet the quality specifications and quantity demands of nuclear fuel pellets.