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
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
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
Chan Eok Park, Jong Ho Choi, Gyu Cheon Lee, Sang Yong Lee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 1 | January-February 2019 | Pages 77-93
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1501990
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The system thermal-hydraulic code SPACE adopts a multidimensional two-fluid, three-field model to simulate two-phase-flow phenomena encountered during various anticipated transients and postulated accidents of pressurized water reactors. The applicable mesh systems include structured/staggered and unstructured/collocated ones. The staggered mesh system is based on the orthogonal hexahedral shape of cells and their surrounding faces, but it is generalized to describe not only multidimensional Cartesian meshes but also cylindrical meshes and one-dimensional pipe flow networks. The unstructured/collocated mesh system is used to represent more complex geometry using hexahedron, tetrahedron, pyramid, or prism shapes of cells. The structured/staggered mesh system hydraulic solver and the unstructured/collocated mesh system hydraulic solver are merged into a unified version of SPACE so that those hydraulic solvers can analyze simultaneously a complicated system comprising several structured and unstructured mesh blocks. In this paper, the governing equations, mesh systems, and numerical formulations for SPACE are introduced, and the application results are presented for several conceptual problems including the connection of heterogeneous mesh blocks.
