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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
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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Latest News
From South Korea to Belgium: Testing a high-density research reactor fuel
The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has developed a high-density uranium silicide fuel designed to replace high-enriched uranium in research reactors. Recent irradiation tests appear to be successful, KAERI reports, which means the fuel could be commercialized to continue a key global nuclear nonproliferation effort—converting research reactors to run on low-enriched uranium fuel.
C. Russell Joyner, II, Michael Eades, James Horton, Tyler Jennings, Timothy Kokan, Daniel J. H. Levack, Brian J. Muzek, Christopher B. Reynolds
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 8 | August 2020 | Pages 1140-1154
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1706982
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The future of human exploration missions to Mars is dependent on solutions to the technology challenges being worked on by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and industry. One of the key architecture technologies involves propulsion that can transport the human crew from Earth orbit to other planets and back to Earth with the lowest risk to crew and the mission. Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) is a proven technology that provides the performance required to enable benefits in greater payload mass, shorter transit time, wider launch windows, and rapid mission aborts due to its high specific impulse and high thrust.
Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) has stayed engaged for several decades in working NTP engine systems and has worked with NASA recently to perform an extensive study on using low-enriched uranium NTP engine systems for a Mars campaign involving crewed missions from the 2030s through the 2050s. Aerojet Rocketdyne has used a consistent set of NASA ground rules and they are constantly updated as NASA adjusts its sights on obtaining a path to Mars, now via the Lunar Operations Platform-Gateway. Building on NASA’s work, AR has assessed NTP as the high-thrust propulsion option to transport the crew by looking at how it can provide more mission capability than chemical or other propulsion systems.
The impacts of the NTP engine system on the Mars transfer vehicle configuration have been assessed via several trade studies since 2016, including thrust size, number of engine systems, liquid hydrogen stage size, reaction control system sizing, propellant losses, NASA Space Launch System (SLS) payload fairing size impact, and aggregation orbit.
An AR study activity in 2018 included examining NTP stages derived from Mars crew mission elements to deliver extremely large cargo via multiple launches or directly off the NASA SLS. This paper provides an update on the results of the ongoing engine system and mission trade studies.