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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
May 2024
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Latest News
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
Guanyi Wang, Cezary Bojanowski, Akshay Dave, David Jaluvka, Lin-Wen Hu, Erik Wilson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 11 | November 2023 | Pages 1797-1818
Regular Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2205971
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The hydromechanical stability of the fuel plates in parallel coolant channels of a Materials Testing Reactor (MTR) fuel element design is of great importance to the safety of research and test reactors. Previous analytical, experimental, and numerical efforts focused on parallel channels with the same or similar size; also, in the prior numerical simulations, the fuel plate was often assumed to be perfectly flat. This work presents the results of a fluid-structure interaction simulation performed to evaluate the flow-induced deflections of the fuel plates in the low-enriched uranium (LEU, <20 wt% 235U) fuel element design for the conversion (from highly enriched uranium) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Reactor (MITR-II, also referred to as MITR). Various manufacturing and assembly tolerances of the MITR LEU elements are considered in the analysis, and the effects of channel size disparity, nonideal plate shape, and flow rate uncertainty are investigated. Results show that, for all cases analyzed, the deflection occurs toward the larger channel, and the change in any channel stripe remains small (less than 0.021 mm) compared to fabrication tolerances. In addition to simulation work, a hydraulic performance test of the MITR LEU fuel element is currently planned to support conversion to the use of LEU fuel.
