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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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
Oct 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
December 2025
Nuclear Technology
November 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Energy Secretary to speak at the 2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
In less than two weeks, the American Nuclear Society’s second annual conference of the year, the 2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo, will come to Washington, D.C.
Today, ANS is announcing that Energy Secretary Chris Wright will be joining the list of nuclear leaders slated to speak at the conference.
Click here to register for the meeting, which will take place November 9–12 in Washington, D.C., at the Washington Hilton. Be sure to do so before November 7 to take advantage of priority pricing.
Paul B. Abramson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 35 | Number 1 | August 1977 | Pages 87-96
Technical Paper | Reactor Siting | doi.org/10.13182/NT77-A31852
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the very unlikely event of a loss-of-flow accident in a liquid-metal fast breeder reactor being accompanied by complete failure to scram, the reactor could go prompt critical, generating a large amount of neutronic heat on a millisecond time scale. We find that fuel-to-steel heat transfer has a minimal influence upon the neutronic energy deposition during the prompt burst but that it can play an important role in material behavior in later stages of the hypothetical core disruptive accident. Furthermore, results obtained indicate that calculations of thermodynamic potential energy through adiabatic expansion to one atmosphere are conservative if performed at the end of the prompt burst and that fuel-to-steel heat transfer may significantly reduce the available work energy within the next 20 ms.