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
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver 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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Satoshi Fukada, Akira Nakamura
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 2 | October 2014 | Pages 322-336
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-694
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Mixtures of fluoride molten salts such as LiF + BeF2 (Flibe) and LiF + NaF + KF (Flinak) have been proposed as tritium breeders for fusion reactors and heat-transfer fluids for high-temperature fission reactors. The melting point of mixed molten salts is important in fusion and fission reactor designs. An analytical method using the activity coefficient of the Margules’ equation and another method using an equilibrium constant when a new phase appears in the phase diagram are proposed for calculating melting points according to whether or not the new phase appears. First, the melting points of pure fluorides of LiF, NaF, KF, and BeF2 are investigated in detail, and uncertainties in the thermodynamic properties of the targeted molten salt mixtures are clarified. Then, the melting points of some binary- and tertiary-component fluoride molten salt mixtures of LiF + NaF (Flina), LiF + KF (Flik), NaF + KF (Fnak), LiF + NaF + KF (Flinak), LiF + BeF2 (Flibe), and NaF + BeF2 (Fnabe) are analytically investigated to enhance their wider application in fusion and fission reactors. Estimated melting points are compared with experimental data reported previously. Estimation errors are within 3.0 K (0.3%) for the pure fluorides and within 34 K (5.2%) for the binary or tertiary fluoride mixtures. Although estimation errors for the Flinak system are larger than those of previous reference data, the present estimation does not include an accommodation factor, and the parameter values included in the estimation are consistent with other thermodynamic data. The values of the activity coefficient used for estimation of the Flinak system and the equilibrium constant included in estimation of the Flibe and Fnabe systems are consistent with relevant thermodynamic properties. Therefore, the present method can be applied to estimate melting points for a range of multicomponent fluoride mixtures.
