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
Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
Meeting Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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
Jun 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2025
Nuclear Technology
July 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Report: New York state adding 1 GW of nuclear to fleet
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has instructed the state’s public electric utility to add at least 1 gigawatt of new nuclear by building a large-scale nuclear plant or a collection of smaller modular reactors, according to the Wall Street Journal.
X. Zhao (MIT), A. Wysocki, R. Salko (ORNL), K. Shirvan (MIT)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 148-155
The critical heat flux (CHF) corresponding to the departure from nucleate boiling (DNB) is one of the major limiting factors in the design and operation of pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Various predictive tools have been proposed for steady-state conditions. Empirical correlations and look-up tables yield relatively good agreement with specific experimental datasets and are widely used in subchannel codes for PWR transient simulations. However, experimental studies have revealed that during fast transients the CHF values can become significantly higher than those in steady-state or slow transient scenarios, causing this modeling approach to result in overly conservative DNB prediction. This paper presents a mechanistic transient CHF model. Based on prior work, two DNB triggering mechanisms prevail in this model - the hydrodynamic thinning process and the thermal thinning process - both of which rely on the liquid sublayer dryout theory. Both mechanisms evaluate the depletion of the liquid sublayer underneath vapor slugs flowing over the channel. This model is further validated against three sets of power transient experiments at different operating conditions. While it clearly outperforms steady-state approaches and generally agrees closely with measurements, it still remarkably under-estimates CHF for very fast transients at low pressure. Future investigations will address this limitation.