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 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Aug 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2026
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
August 2026
Latest News
The transformation of the NRC: 50 years of commissioners
The dust is beginning to settle following the whirlwind of changes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the past year, and 2025 ultimately may be viewed as a transformative year, as well as the year the NRC celebrated its golden anniversary. The 12 months of that milestone year brought more change to the agency in its composition, its mandate, and its relationship to the executive branch than any comparable period in the preceding four decades.
Now at 51 years and counting, the NRC is working with a full commission and issuing new rulemakings to both regulate and support the next round of nuclear deployments. With the turbulence of 2025 still fresh in our minds, Nuclear News decided it was a good time to revisit the professional backgrounds of all 42 NRC commissioners who have served over the agency’s 50-year history to see how the composition of the commission has evolved over time.
Weikai Gao, Xiaowei Li, Xinxin Wu, Jiaqing Zhao, Yiyang Zhang, Xiaowei Luo (Tsinghua Univ)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 1193-1198
High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor usually adopts helical tube bundles for its heat transfer equipment (steam generator or intermediate heat exchanger). The geometrical arrangement of helical tube bundles determines its thermal hydraulic performances. The flow attack angles between the tube axes of helical tubes and the fluid flow directions are smaller than 90 degrees, which is introduced by the inclination of the helical tubes due to upward winding. Except for the parameters of tube diameter, helical diameter, longitudinal pitches, transverse pitches and inclination angles, the inclination direction (or winding direction) of neighboring layers of helical tubes also influences the thermal hydraulic performances. The opposite sense inclination effect is numerically investigated. A three dimensional model having 5 layers of straight tubes with opposite sense inclination of neighboring layers is established. Standard k-? model was used for the turbulence modeling. The velocity and temperature field were investigated. Special attention is paid on the opposite sense inclination effect on pressure drop and heat transfer coefficient. The results show that the opposite sense inclination will lower the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop coefficient, which coincides with the measured results.