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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.
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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!
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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
Cole Gentry, Kang Seog Kim, G. Ivan Maldonado
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 3 | December 2018 | Pages 299-317
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1486158
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the development of a lattice physics–to–core simulator two-step procedure for the rapid analysis of the Advanced High Temperature Reactor (AHTR). Lattice physics, reflector, and control blade models were developed from which cross-section libraries could be generated for a nodal core simulator. Few-group structures for the core simulator were also generated to account for the neutronic characteristics of AHTR. After developing the AHTR two-step procedure, cross-section libraries were generated using the SERPENT continuous-energy Monte Carlo code. These libraries were then used in the core simulator NESTLE to perform full-core calculations, which were in turn benchmarked against reference SERPENT full-core models. Benchmarking results showed reasonable accuracy of the developed two-step procedure but revealed an inherent inadequacy in the one-dimensional radial reflector model and showed a likely need for a greater number of energy groups than were used in this study.
