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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jan 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
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?
Michael P. Manahan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | November 1983 | Pages 295-315
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT83-A33289
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A Miniaturized Disk Bend Test (MDBT) capable of extracting postirradiation mechanical behavior information from disk-shaped specimens no larger than those used for transmission electron microscopy has been successfully developed. Finite element analysis is performed to convert the experimentally measured data into useful engineering information. A new finite element frictional contact boundary condition model has been developed that is essential in modeling the non-uniform strain fields present in the MDBT specimen. The MDBT methodology has been shown to be capable of delivering uniaxial stress/strain information with approximately the same level of accuracy as that present in the more conventional uniaxial tensile testing approach. A data inversion strategy has been developed and applied to irradiated materials to determine uniaxial tensile behavior. Since neutron irradiation costs scale with specimen volume, this miniaturized mechanical behavior test can now provide significant savings in irradiation testing costs for nuclear materials used in fusion and other nuclear technologies. In addition, it is now possible to provide mechanical behavior information not ordinarily obtainable due to space limitations in irradiation experiments, and thus expedite alloy development investigations.
