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
Operations & Power
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.
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
Fusion Science and Technology
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?
Valentin Casal
Nuclear Technology | Volume 47 | Number 1 | January 1980 | Pages 153-162
Technical Paper | Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32418
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Investigations of the thermodynamic behavior of reactor fuel elements require out-of-pile experiments to be carried out on fuel element mockups made up of electrical heater rods. The results of these experiments depend strongly on the similarity of thermodynamic behavior between heater rods applied and nuclear fuel rods to be simulated. Typical requirements for the heater rods that simulate the nuclear fuel rods of interest are, for example, heat flux density and the associated heat flux density distribution in case of nonuniform coolant conditions and heat capacity. Because of the various modes of heat production in nuclear fuel rods, electrically heated rods in experiments are able to only partially meet these requirements. A type I heater with a nickel-chromium conductor, maximum rod power up to 340 W/cm at cladding temperatures up to 1200 K, and a type II heater with a tantalum-tungsten conductor, rod powers up to 1000 W/cm at cladding temperatures of 1200 K, were examined experimentally in a liquid sodium flow and showed lifetimes up to 10 h and more. They can be fabricated with different geometrical dimensions (e.g., diameters, heated and unheated lengths) and varying axial heat production.
