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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Haruo Sato
Nuclear Technology | Volume 127 | Number 2 | August 1999 | Pages 199-211
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT127-199
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The diffusion of radionuclides into the pore spaces of a rock matrix and the pore properties in fractured crystalline rocks were studied. The work concentrated on the predominant water-conducting fracture system in the host granodiorite of the Kamaishi In Situ Test Site, which consists of fracture fillings and altered granodiorite. Through-diffusion experiments to obtain effective and apparent diffusion coefficients (De and Da, respectively) for Na+, Cs+, HTO, Cl-, and SeO32- as a function of ionic charge were conducted through the fracture fillings and altered and intact granodiorite. The total porosity , density, pore-size distribution, and specific surface area of the pores of the rocks were also determined by a water saturation method and Hg porosimetry. The average is, in the order from highest to lowest, as follows: fracture fillings (5.6%) greater than altered granodiorite (3.2%) greater than intact granodiorite (2.3%), and gradually it decreases into the matrix. The pore sizes of the intact and altered granodiorite range from 10 nm to 200 m, and the fracture fillings from 50 nm to 200 m, but almost all pores are found around 0.1 and 200 m in the fracture fillings. The De values for all species are in the following order: fracture fillings greater than altered granodiorite greater than intact granodiorite, as with the rock porosity. In addition, no effect of ionic charge on De is found. No significant dependence for Da values on the rock porosity is found. The formation factors FF and geometric factors G of the rocks were evaluated by normalizing the free water diffusion coefficient Do for each species. The FF decreased with decreasing rock porosity, and an empirical equation for the rock porosity was derived to be FF = 1.57±0.02. The G values showed a tendency to slightly decrease with decreasing rock porosity, but they were approximately constant (0.12 to 0.19) in this porosity range. This indicates that accessible pores decrease into the rock matrix from the fractures, and diffusion is also reduced into the rock matrix. Furthermore, it was concluded that a simplified model based on FF and Do values is approximately reasonable to predict De.
