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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
July 2025
Latest News
DOE issues new NEPA rule and procedures—and accelerates DOME reactor testing
Meeting a deadline set in President Trump’s May 23 executive order “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy,” the DOE on June 30 updated information on its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rulemaking and implementation procedures and published on its website an interim final rule that rescinds existing regulations alongside new implementing procedures.
Xiaoyang Gaus-Liu, Thomas Cron, Beatrix Fluhrer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 9 | September 2020 | Pages 1385-1396
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1743102
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In-vessel melt retention (IVMR) is a promising strategy in severe accident management for light water reactors. This strategy is not only adopted in the VVER 440 or AP600 reactors, but also included in higher-power reactors around 1000 MW(electric), like the AP1000 and Chinese CPR 1000. There is still a large uncertainty of IVMR by external cooling at powers higher than 1000 MW(electric), and especially where a thin metallic layer appears on the top of a heat-generating oxide layer. Less knowledge based on large-scale experiments is available until now of the interactive physical, chemical, and thermohydraulic processes between the oxide layer and the metallic layer. A test series of naturally separated two liquid layers was conducted in the upgraded LIVE2D test facility in Karlsruhe Institute of Technology using a nitrate salt mixture and high-temperature oil as the lower layer and upper layer simulant, respectively. The transparent front wall of the test vessel enables direct observation of global convection patterns of the melts and the response of the crust at the layer interface. The experiment reveals major thermohydraulic characteristics of the metallic layer during the transient and steady states. The intensity of the heat flux focusing effect in dependence of layer thickness can be clearly identified.