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
Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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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May 2025
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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
Roberto E. Fairhurst-Agosta, Tomasz Kozlowski
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 1 | January 2025 | Pages 66-78
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2319922
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An accurate assessment of the deposited energy across a reactor geometry allows for a better determination of the heat removal requirements and ensures effective cooling after shutdown. This work discusses several methods in detail that target the heat deposition in specific reactor regions, leading to a choice of a prevalent method for the calculation workflow. This paper introduces a delayed heating calculation workflow based on the formal three-step process. The workflow relies on the MCNP-ORIGEN Activation Automation tool for performing the first two steps of the process, while the third step is conducted via MCNP photon transport simulations. This paper showcases two applications to demonstrate the workflow and simulation outputs. These include an Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) experiment and the RA-6 reactor structures.
