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
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
Jul 2024
Jan 2024
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Four million nuclear jobs by 2050: Who will do them?
Industry leaders from around the globe met this month to discuss the talent development that will be necessary for the long-term success of the nuclear industry.
The International Conference on Nuclear Knowledge Management and Human Resources Development, hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, was held in Vienna earlier this month. Discussed there was the agency’s forecast for nuclear capacity to more than double—or hopefully triple—by 2050 and the requirement of more than four million professionals to support the industry.
Didier Costes
Nuclear Technology | Volume 67 | Number 1 | October 1984 | Pages 169-177
Technical Note | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT84-A33539
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Sodium-cooled reactor vessels must not resist high pressures, and their walls are relatively thin. These vessels are usually suspended by their lateral wall to the cold roof slab. The upper part of this wall is subjected to periodic thermal stresses and to a permanent tension, corresponding to the weight of the sodium and of the components inside the vessel. In order to avoid a progressive deformation, the temperature of the vessel wall is limited to ∼400°C. This necessitates setting up relatively expensive baffles to isolate the wall from the hot sodium flowing out of the core. In order to relieve the wall from weight-related stresses, vessels resting on the installation basemat by means of sliding or articulated supports were proposed in early projects. A current design proposal consists of resting the vessel bottom on welded, concentric skirts, the chosen temperature of the bottom being relatively low; then a stable thermal gradient appears in sodium layers below the core. The corresponding heat flux lost toward the bottom proves remarkably low; an important simplification of the vessel walls and internal structures, as well as interesting safety features, may be obtained.