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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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
Jan 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
How to talk about nuclear
In your career as a professional in the nuclear community, chances are you will, at some point, be asked (or volunteer) to talk to at least one layperson about the technology you know and love. You might even be asked to present to a whole group of nonnuclear folks, perhaps as a pitch to some company tangential to your company’s business. So, without further ado, let me give you some pointers on the best way to approach this important and surprisingly complicated task.
T. C. Chawla
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 53 | Number 4 | April 1974 | Pages 466-474
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE74-A23377
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
It is well known that the small-perturbation equations governing steady or mildly unsteady potential flow in a sonic or a transonic gas jet are nonlinear. However, for a liquid-submerged sonic gas jet with a disturbance on the gas-liquid interface, the analysis shows that the unsteadiness introduced into the flow by oscillation of the gas-liquid interface due to presence of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is sufficiently large, the nonlinear disturbance accumulation does not have time to develop, and the linearized treatment that includes the transient motion of gas becomes valid. Through an order-of-magnitude analysis of the full governing equations for the gas flow in a liquid-submerged axisymmetric sonic gas jet with a disturbance at the gas-liquid interface, the condition under which the governing equations can be linearized is obtained. It is shown that this condition of linearization takes the form of the Weber number (We) 26 (p/pg)0.2 for the case of low-viscosity liquids and We 36 for the high-viscosity liquids surrounding the gas jet. (Ug is the gas velocity, p is density, σ is surface tension, and p is the dynamic viscosity.) It is demonstrated that most gas-liquid systems of physical interest satisfy the condition of linearization. Examples of application can be found in the field of pneumatic atomization using a sonic gas jet, and in the field of Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) safety in relation to thermal transients induced by impingement on a fuel pin of a sonic fission-gas jet released from an adjacent breached pin. For the purpose of comparison with a sonic gas jet, it is also shown that in the case of subsonic and supersonic gas jets, the linearization of equations of motion to a first order is generally possible; that is, the condition of linearization for these jets is not as stringent as for the sonic gas jet. When in transient motion due to a disturbance at the gas-liquid interface having wave velocity much smaller than the gas velocity, the transient terms in comparison to perturbation terms of basic flow are of second order. In contrast to these jets, in the case of a sonic gas jet the transient motion of the gas cannot be neglected even at very slow oscillations of the gas-liquid interface.
