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
Mathematics & Computation
Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
July 2025
Nuclear Technology
June 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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
Hyun-Sik Park, Hwang Bae, Sung-Uk Ryu, Byong-Guk Jeon, Jin-Hwa Yang, Sung-Jae Yi, Young-Jong Chung
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 10 | October 2023 | Pages 1617-1635
Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2217370
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The thermal-hydraulic research supporting the development of an integral type of reactor named System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor (SMART) is discussed. First, the SMART development program is introduced. The Standard Design Approval (SDA) for SMART was certificated in 2012 based on extensive technical validation activities during 2009 to 2012, and a set of passive safety systems (PSSs) was designed and validated for SMART during 2013 to 2015 after the Fukushima Daiichi accident. During 2016 to 2018, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Korea conducted a 3-year project of Pre-Project Engineering (PPE), and now, the Standard Design Approval (SDA) for SMART100 is being processed from 2019. Second, the SMART validation test program and related test facilities are introduced. A set of integral effect tests (IETs) was performed using VISTA-ITL, and several separate effect tests (SETs) using the facilities of SWAT, SCOP, and FTHEL were performed for SMART SDA. Counterpart tests for SMART SDA were performed with the newly constructed SMART-ITL facility, and various validation tests for SMART PSSs were also performed. In addition, dozens of validation tests for SMART PPE were performed to produce IET data for design-basis-accident scenarios and PSSs. Additional SETs for SMART PPE and SMART100 SDA were performed using the facilities of SISTA-1, SISTA-2, and FINCLS. Third, the major test results are discussed for phenomena expected to occur in an integral type of reactor such as the SMART design. They include core cooling behaviors in the reactor coolant system and safety injection behaviors in the passive safety injection system and counterpart test results of a small-break loss-of-coolant accident between VISTA-ITL and SMART-ITL. Fourth, the major analysis results for SMART are discussed. Several sets of code analysis were performed for selected IET cases with the MARS-KS and TASS/SMR-S codes to validate their models and the codes themselves. They include simulation of a SMART safety injection system line break test with the MARS-KS code, validation of the TASS/SMR-S code for natural circulation tests, and validation of the MARS-KS and TASS/SMR-S codes based on a pressurizer safety valve line break test.
