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
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Sukho Lee, In-Goo Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 130 | Number 1 | April 2000 | Pages 18-26
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3074
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The critical reactor header break and the thermosiphoning experiments in the RD-14 test facility were simulated with the RELAP5/MOD3.1 code. The RELAP5 code has been developed for best-estimate transient simulation of pressurized water reactors and associated systems, but it has not been assessed for a Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactor. Therefore, this study has been initiated with an aim to identify the code applicability in a CANDU reactor by simulating some of the tests performed in the RD-14 facility. The RD-14 test facility at Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment is a full-scale pressurized-water loop. The RD-14 is not a scale model of any particular CANDU reactor. Rather, it possesses many geometric features of a CANDU reactor heat transport system and is capable of operating at conditions similar to those expected to occur in a reactor under normal operation and some postulated accident conditions. In this study, two critical reactor header break tests (B8711 and B8713) and three thermosiphoning tests (T8513, T8515, and T8517) were analyzed with the RELAP5 code. The results were compared with experimental data and those of CATHENA performed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. The RELAP5 analyses demonstrate the code's capability to predict reasonably the main phenomena occurring in the transient, in both the qualitative and the quantitative view. However, some discrepancies after the emergency coolant injection for the critical break case and also related to the behaviors of the mass flow rate and the primary pressure for the thermosiphoning case were observed.