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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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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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Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
Cheng-Kai Tai, Tri Nguyen, Arsen S. Iskhakov, Elia Merzari, Nam T. Dinh, Igor A. Bolotnov
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 7 | July 2024 | Pages 1097-1118
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2213286
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Mixed convection of low and unitary Prandtl fluids in a vertical passage is fundamental to passive heat removal in liquid metal and gas-cooled advanced reactor designs. Capturing the influence of buoyancy in flow and heat transfer in engineering analysis is hence a cornerstone to the safety of the next-generation reactor. However, accurate prediction of the mixed convection phenomenon has eluded current turbulence and heat transfer modeling approaches, yet further development and validation of modeling methods is limited by a scarcity of high-fidelity data pertaining to reactor heat transfer. In this work, a series of direct numerical simulations was conducted to investigate the influence of buoyancy on descending flow of liquid sodium, lead, and unitary Prandtl fluid in a differentially heated channel that represents the reactor downcomer region. From time-averaged statistics, flow-opposing/aiding buoyant plumes near the heated/cooled wall distort the mean velocity distribution, which gives rise to promotion/suppression of turbulence intensity and modification of turbulent shear stress and heat flux distribution. Frequency analysis of time series also suggests the existence of large-scale convective and thermal structures rising from the heated wall. As a general trend, fluids of lower Prandtl number were found to be more susceptible to the buoyancy effect due to stronger differential buoyancy across the channel. On the other hand, the effectiveness of convective heat transfer of the three studied fluids showed a distinct trend against the influence of buoyancy. Physical reasoning on observation of the Nusselt number trend is also discussed.