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
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
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2024
Nuclear Technology
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August 2024
Latest News
New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
Tedric A. Harris
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 6 | Number 3 | September 1959 | Pages 238-244
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE59-A25665
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A loss-of-coolant accident in a pressurized water, nuclear power plant is one which permits coolant to escape from the primary system. If such an accident were allowed to proceed uninhibited by corrective measures, the core may lose sufficient coolant such as to permit core heatup. In order to design a system to maintain the core cool, it is necessary to evaluate the coolant blowdown process which occurs after rupture and thereby establish the pressure-time and volume-time relationships of the primary coolant after rupture. The coolant blowdown process after rupture is complex because the two-phase expansion of water and steam obtains after saturation pressure is attained. The analysis of this process utilizes heat, mass and volume balances of the reactor coolant to establish the thermodynamic state of the reactor coolant at any time after rupture within conservative limits.