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Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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!
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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
John Pevey, Ondřej Chvála, Sarah Davis, Vladimir Sobes, J. Wes Hines
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 4 | April 2020 | Pages 609-619
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1664198
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper discusses the design of a fast spectrum subcritical assembly utilizing a genetic algorithm. The facility proposed in this paper would be a flexible platform for expanding the knowledge of fast spectrum neutron cross sections needed for next-generation fast reactor designs. The Fast Neutron Source (FNS) would be composed of both a fast and a thermal region to minimize the amount of uranium fuel and reduce overall material costs while maintaining flexibility for many potential fast neutron cross-section experiments. The FNS would be customizable and interchangeable down to 1 × 1 × 10-in.-volume sections. An optimal core design requires the adjustment of many factors to both reduce the cost and accurately reproduce the spectra of interest during an experiment. A genetic algorithm was developed to optimize this complex design problem while reducing design time and expert judgment. The genetic algorithm was able to vary multiple design factors in an unattended fashion from a random initial population of designs and arrived at a design comparable to an expertly designed assembly.
