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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Brian S. Triplett, Eric P. Loewen, Brett J. Dooies
Nuclear Technology | Volume 178 | Number 2 | May 2012 | Pages 186-200
Technical Paper | Small Modular Reactors / Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT178-186
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) designed by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy is a small, modular, sodium-cooled fast reactor. The PRISM core is located in a pool-type containment vessel and is fueled with metallic fuel. Each PRISM produces 311 MW of electricity. The PRISM is inherently safe due to its negative power reactivity feedback, large in-vessel coolant inventory, passive heat removal systems, below-grade siting, and atmospheric reactor vessel operating pressure. In NUREG-1368, "Preapplication Safety Evaluation Report for the Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) Liquid-Metal Reactor," the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that "On the basis of the review performed, the staff, with the ACRS [Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards] in agreement, concludes that no obvious impediments to licensing the PRISM design have been identified." PRISM is able to fission electrometallurgically recycled used nuclear fuel (UNF) from light water reactors as well as weapons-grade materials. PRISM, with the associated Nuclear Fuel Recycling Center, represents a safe, diversion resistant, commercially viable technology for recycling UNF with a small modular reactor.
