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
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
June 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
High-temperature plumbing and advanced reactors
The use of nuclear fission power and its role in impacting climate change is hotly debated. Fission advocates argue that short-term solutions would involve the rapid deployment of Gen III+ nuclear reactors, like Vogtle-3 and -4, while long-term climate change impact would rely on the creation and implementation of Gen IV reactors, “inherently safe” reactors that use passive laws of physics and chemistry rather than active controls such as valves and pumps to operate safely. While Gen IV reactors vary in many ways, one thing unites nearly all of them: the use of exotic, high-temperature coolants. These fluids, like molten salts and liquid metals, can enable reactor engineers to design much safer nuclear reactors—ultimately because the boiling point of each fluid is extremely high. Fluids that remain liquid over large temperature ranges can provide good heat transfer through many demanding conditions, all with minimal pressurization. Although the most apparent use for these fluids is advanced fission power, they have the potential to be applied to other power generation sources such as fusion, thermal storage, solar, or high-temperature process heat.1–3
Kosuke Aizawa, Koei Sasaki, Yoshitaka Chikazawa, Masaru Fukuie, Noboru Jinbo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 1 | October 2018 | Pages 74-82
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1469346
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Development of an inspection technique in opaque liquid-metal coolant is one of the important issues to ensure the safety of the liquid-metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR). Performance tests of an under sodium viewer (USV), which was developed to detect an obstacle in the reactor vessel (RV) of the LMFBR Monju, have been carried out. Ultrasonic sensors and reflectors are located across the core inside Monju’s RV. The USV can detect an obstacle existing between the core top and the upper core structure bottom by identifying differences of echo signals. This paper describes the USV performance tests. In the tests, the reference echo signals under various conditions were accumulated, and the signal-to-noise ratio successfully exceeded the target value. Measured signals clearly differed with and without an obstacle. These experimental results show the performance of the USV for detecting an obstacle in a specified place.
