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
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
April 2025
Latest News
Nuclear News 40 Under 40 discuss the future of nuclear
Seven members of the inaugural Nuclear News 40 Under 40 came together on March 4 to discuss the current state of nuclear energy and what the future might hold for science, industry, and the public in terms of nuclear development.
To hear more insights from this talented group of young professionals, watch the “40 Under 40 Roundtable: Perspectives from Nuclear’s Rising Stars” on the ANS website.
Zhengting Quan, Adam Dix, Ran Kong, Seungjin Kim, Mamoru Ishii, Mitchell T. Farmer
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 5 | May 2023 | Pages 771-787
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2082232
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work studies the hydrodynamics of the seven-pin wire-wrapped rod bundle in the sodium cartridge loop for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) through scaled water experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The scaling analysis is first performed to demonstrate the hydrodynamic similarity between water and sodium flows at the same Reynolds number . A separate-effects test facility is designed and constructed based on the scaling analysis. Detailed experimental data on the pressure drop covering a wide range of values (1165 to 27 689) are obtained, which are used to evaluate existing correlations for friction factor and to benchmark CFD simulations. The experimentally determined friction factors agree well with the Upgraded Cheng and Todreas Detailed Correlation and Pacio-Chen-Todreas Detailed Model within but are significantly underpredicted by Rehme’s correlation by 25%. Various CFD near-wall treatment methods are tested using ANSYS Fluent and evaluated by experimental data. It is found that when the recommended wall values are met, most of the near-wall treatment methods can give accurate friction factor predictions. The resolved near-wall method () with the Shear Stress Transport turbulence model and the scalable wall functions () with the realizable turbulence model can predict within . The standard wall functions () and nonequilibrium wall functions () with the realizable model can predict within ± 10%.