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Division Spotlight
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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
Minsuk Seo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 12 | December 2021 | Pages 1902-1912
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1860614
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ensuring the thermal stability of heat-generating nuclear waste glass canisters in interim storage and the thermal stability of bentonite in the deep geological repository are crucial to preserving the function of the waste form. Yet thermal stability might be challenged by further heated air conditions and excessive heat load in the waste form, such that the maximum temperature would be higher than the glass transition temperature undesirably. The finite element method was carried out for the n × n × 4 (n = 1, 3, 5) multicanister system for the sake of predicting the maximum temperatures of interim storage. The internal heat source amount and exiting air temperature of the system were varied to see different storage environments. The maximum heat load of a 15.8 kW/m3 canister was in a safe range (glass transition temperature of 500°C), whereas an 18.6 kW/m3 canister was not. There is a possibility to extend thermal stability to a system larger than n = 5 for 15.8 kW/m3 based on the converging maximum temperature trends. Besides, the maximum temperature of the canister and bentonite clay in a deep geological repository is potentially below the thermal criterion if the canister cools down for about 65 to 70 years.
