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 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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
Nov 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
December 2025
Nuclear Technology
November 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The progress so far: An update on the Reactor Pilot Program
It has been about three months since the Department of Energy named 10 companies for its new Reactor Pilot Program, which maps out how the DOE would meet the goal announced by executive order in May of having three reactors achieve criticality by July 4, 2026.
Eric Cervi, Sébastien Baudier, Ling Zou, Rui Hu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 9 | September 2025 | Pages 2045-2069
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2338506
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Software verification and validation constitute crucial phases in the development of simulation computer codes, particularly in the context of nuclear reactor safety analysis codes, where stringent safety requirements govern the development and deployment of nuclear technologies. This paper focuses on numerical verification study of the System Analysis Module (SAM) computer code, currently under development at Argonne National Laboratory. Specifically, we employed the Method of Manufactured Solutions (MMS) and proposed a verification technique tailored to the multiphysics simulation of molten salt reactors (MSRs). This research accomplished three main objectives. First, we have addressed key challenges associated with applying the MMS to MSR systems, arising from (1) the complex multiphysics coupling inherent in this problem and (2) the necessity to model the entire coolant loop for describing the drift of delayed neutron precursors outside the reactor core. The paper provides recommendations and guidelines to overcome these challenges, enabling the successful application of the MMS for simulating MSRs. Second, we have presented a comprehensive set of verification examples, serving as an exhaustive benchmark for code verification within the nuclear community. Third, we have established a robust verification of the SAM code’s capability to model MSR systems.