ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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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
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
Jul 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
Mahmoud Lotfy, Alice Ying, Mohamed Abdou, Yi-Hyun Park, Seungyon Cho
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 255-262
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1330637
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Ceramic breeder pebble beds undergo complex thermally-induced stress build-up and relaxation processes during reactor operations due to the pebble bed thermal expansion and creep deformation. Understanding such processes can facilitate the evaluation of a solid breeder performance, including bed stress/strain equilibrium status, which will guide the design of stable blanket operation and assessment of lifetime. The efforts of this study cover both experimental testing and numerical modeling for this purpose. Measured stresses in pebble beds show a decreasing trend with thermal cycles, until ultimately reaching a saturated state. This stress relaxation is mainly caused by the combined effect of bed plastic rearrangement and accumulation of creep deformation under compressive stresses and high temperatures. As bed stress is reduced, the creep deformation becomes less significant and further cyclic operation would not alter the pebble bed mechanical state. To validate the thermally-induced stress and its variation with cycles, experiments of thermal stress measurement have been designed and conducted for pebble beds heated by both continuous and pulsed power sources. Moreover, the effects of mechanical pre-compaction were investigated with emphasis on understanding the relationship between the bed stress-state evolution and maintaining adequate levels of thermal contact between the pebbles and the coolant structure. The results of this study presents valuable data to serve as a basis for validation of the most recent pebble bed numerical models.