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Division Spotlight
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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“Life is a roller coaster. It’s best ridden with your hands in the air.”
Craig Piercycpiercy@ans.org
I find myself saying the expression above a lot these days—to my kids, my wife, my friends, and colleagues. Most recently, I said it to the person sitting next to me after the pilot of our plane—bound for Reagan National Airport a day after the collision of AA flight 5342 and a military Blackhawk helicopter—aborted the landing at the last minute.
I am not sure where I picked up this pronouncement, but I find it to be apropos to the topsy-turvy moment where we find ourselves in 2025. In addition to the first U.S. commercial airline crash in 15 years, we are witnessing a new presidential administration in its infancy playing by the Silicon Valley rules of “move fast, break things.” We’ve seen DeepSeek, the low-cost Chinese AI that reportedly uses 50–75 percent less energy than its NVIDIA-powered counterparts, tank Constellation’s market value by more than 20 percent in one late-January trading day.
Technical Session|Sponsored by ANSTD
Wednesday, November 18, 2020|4:50–6:30PM EST
Session Chair:
Jorge Navarro
Alternate Chair:
Paolo F. Venneri
Session Organizer:
Jeffrey C. King
Staff Producer:
Ashley Jiminian (American Nuclear Society)
To access the session recording, you must be logged in and registered for the meeting.
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Overview of High-Performance Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket Propulsion System
Jimmy Allen (Dynetics), John Foster (University of Michigan), Nicholas Smith (Idaho National Laboratory), Florent Heidet (Argonne National Laboratory), Michael G. Houts (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Mark Patterson (Southern Research), Michael Johns (Southern Research)
Paper
Preliminary Parametric Studies of a High Performance Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket System
C. M. McSwain (University of Tennessee), Darrin Leer (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Ethan Fisher (Mississippi State University), Rittu S. Raju (University of Michigan), Michael G. Houts (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Michael G. Jarrett (Argonne National Laboratory), Florent Heidet (Argonne National Laboratory), Jonathan T. Gates (Texas A&M University)
Initial Neutronics Modeling of a Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket Engine using MCNP Code
C M. McSwain (University of Tennessee), Darrin Leer (University of North Carolina), Jonathan T. Gates (Texas A&M University), Ethan D. Fisher (Mississippi State University), Michael G. Houts (NASA MSFC), Rittu S. Raju (University of Michigan)
CNTR: Explanation of Propellant Flow and Description of Initial Experiments
Jonathan T. Gates (Argonne National Laboratory), Darrin Leer (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Rittu S. Raju (University of Michigan), Florent Heidet (Argonne National Laboratory), Michael G. Houts (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Thomas J. Godfroy (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), C. M. McSwain (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center), Ethan D. Fisher (NASA)
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