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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Latest News
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Colby Jensen, Austin Fleming
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 10 | October 2019 | Pages 1354-1368
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1627123
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fuel safety research program centered on in-pile transient testing experiments is being developed to support assessment and qualification of advanced nuclear fuel systems using the recently restarted Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility at the Idaho National Laboratory. While resumption of transient testing at TREAT is crucial to enable these programs, full recovery and cutting-edge transient testing capability also require a well-coordinated and innovative instrumentation development and qualification program to support near-term and future objectives. This paper summarizes the experimental approach of transient testing to focus on measuring the response of nuclear fuel to off-normal (or power-cooling mismatch) conditions for modern and advanced reactor environments requiring capabilities extending over wide measurement and environment conditions. It also highlights unique attributes of transient testing of importance to in-pile instruments including relatively low total neutron fluence, high gamma heating, and the need for a well-defined and possibly short time response. Historical approaches to instrumentation for transient testing are also reviewed to provide context to the modern instrument strategy. The paper details the instrumentation needs of modern transient testing. It also summarizes several ongoing research and development (R&D) activities that support the development of state-of-the-art and advanced measurement technologies that will provide a baseline capability for light water reactor and sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) experiment objectives. This R&D will extend to other advanced reactor needs and advanced sensing technology opportunities. Examples of specific sensors planned for near-term deployment with ongoing development include prompt response self-powered neutron detectors, miniature fission chambers, optical fiber–coupled infrared pyrometers, cladding surface thermocouples, electrical impedance–based boiling detectors, and linear variable differential transformer–based sensors for fuel elongation and pressure measurement.