ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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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
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
January 2025
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Latest News
Reboot: Nuclear needs a success . . . anywhere
The media have gleefully resurrected the language of a past nuclear renaissance. Beyond the hype and PR, many people in the nuclear community are taking a more measured view of conditions that could lead to new construction: data center demand, the proliferation of new reactor designs and start-ups, and the sudden ascendance of nuclear energy as the power source everyone wants—or wants to talk about.
Once built, large nuclear reactors can provide clean power for at least 80 years—outlasting 10 to 20 presidential administrations. Smaller reactors can provide heat and power outputs tailored to an end user’s needs. With all the new attention, are we any closer to getting past persistent supply chain and workforce issues and building these new plants? And what will the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president mean for nuclear?
As usual, there are more questions than answers, and most come down to money. Several developers are engaging with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or have already applied for a license, certification, or permit. But designs without paying customers won’t get built. So where are the customers, and what will it take for them to commit?
Douglas C. Bauer, Claude G. Poncelet
Nuclear Technology | Volume 21 | Number 3 | March 1974 | Pages 165-189
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT74-A31388
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several more efficient and effective xenon spatial control procedures have been developed through simulation research at Carnegie-Mellon University and verification on an operating commercial pressurized water reactor at the Point Beach Plant in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The developed spatial control procedures have taken the role of the human operator into realistic account. First Overtone Control provides an efficient and effective approach with an accommodatable, if stiff, premium on the timeliness of intervention. Overstressed Direct Offset Control (DOC) improves the efficiency of Simple DOC, the current procedure, by managing a trade-off between spatial xenon and iodine effects throughout a shorter control period. Collectively, the alternative control approaches focus attention on causes rather than symptoms (i.e., xenon and iodine spatial redistribution by flux) and highlight the importance of early action to restore iodine equilibration. The spatial control procedures were reliably executed by the Point Beach operators normally assigned to a watch. They demonstrated the capability necessary to exercise whatever judgments were called for in the timing and control-rod insertions and retractions needed. The future growth of nuclear power plants into more complex loading patterns that will induce spatial flux oscillations (particularly later in life) suggests that the premium on efficient and effective control procedures for xenon spatial effects will increase.