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
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
U.K. releases new plans to speed nuclear deployment
In an effort to revamp its nuclear sector and enable the buildout of new projects, the U.K. has unveiled a sweeping set of changes to project deployment. These changes, which are set to come into effect by the end of next year, will restructure the country’s regulatory and environmental approval framework and directly support new growth through various workforce efforts.
Jiaxin Mao, Victor Petrov, Annalisa Manera, Trevor K. Howard, Sacit M. Cetiner
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 10 | October 2023 | Pages 1565-1576
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2133505
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Measuring the flow rate in High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors is a challenge for traditional flowmeters due to the high flow rate (10 to 15 m/s at nominal operating conditions), high operating temperatures (>700°C), and high neutron flux and gamma fields in the reactor core. This paper discusses developing a novel flowmeter that can work under these extreme conditions. Oak Ridge National Laboratory first proposed using acoustics to measure the flow in the reactor, more specifically, using a Kelvin-Helmholtz resonator to correlate the gas flow rate with vibration frequency. With the primary goal of developing an acoustic measurement technique, we propose an acoustic corrugated pipe as a candidate for the development of a novel gas flowmeter. Experimental investigations on corrugated pipes have confirmed the dependence of the whistling frequency on the gas flow rate. Also, a tube-in-tube configuration is proposed for the flowmeter prototype, which can help mitigate resonance between the system and the flowmeter. Experimental investigation using the prototype has shown good independence from the piping system. Furthermore, Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations have been performed and validated with a satisfactory agreement, providing confidence that URANS models can adequately predict the characteristic curve (flow rate versus frequency) of the corrugated pipe and can therefore be used to optimize the flowmeter designs cost-effectively.