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
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
May 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Sam Altman steps down as Oklo board chair
Advanced nuclear company Oklo Inc. has new leadership for its board of directors as billionaire Sam Altman is stepping down from the position he has held since 2015. The move is meant to open new partnership opportunities with OpenAI, where Altman is CEO, and other artificial intelligence companies.
Bradley Heath, Colby Jensen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 9 | September 2020 | Pages 1436-1448
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1725370
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility is a graphite reactor capable of delivering tailored power histories to unique experiment designs. Frequently, these experiments are designed to simulate a specific reactor transient to perform detailed studies of reactor fuel behavior. The reactor core is uniquely designed to allow a limited energy release and resulting peak fuel cladding temperature such that thermal feedback mechanisms shut the reactor power transient down in a passive manner, thus maximizing the lifetime of the reactor fuel cladding. The reactor is air cooled; however, the cooling system does not serve a safety function. The air cooling is typically used for four main functions: (1) accelerate cooling of the reactor core to ambient temperature post transient operations, (2) remove activated gases from the reactor cavity, (3) perform heat balance for power calibration, and (4) maintain criticality on extended steady-state runs or shaped transients. With the restart of the reactor, these systems are now fully operational and have been exercised during the past year for the first time in more than 20 years. This paper summarizes the thermal properties of the core and the thermal-hydraulic design of the TREAT Facility and presents selected results of temperature profiles resulting from operation. Conservatively estimated maximum transient energy and steady-state power is provided.