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
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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Lainsu Kao, Mujid S. Kazimi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 78 | Number 2 | August 1987 | Pages 170-184
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A33995
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Analyses of the concrete attack and ex-vessel aerosol release using various assumptions for the molten corium/concrete interaction have been performed. The study involved variations in several parameters, such as initial debris temperature, amount of unoxidized zirconium, amount of melt, concrete ablation temperature, and concrete type. At high initial corium temperatures the periodic contact (nucleate-boiling-like) model leads to more rapid concrete attack, higher decomposition gas release, and higher fission product release than the gas film model. At low initial corium temperatures, when a corium crust is initially formed, the various heat transfer models do not lead to significant differences in the fission product releases. Besides the initial debris temperature, the most significant parameter in prediction of the fission product release is the amount of unoxidized zirconium. Among the various fission products, the nonvolatiles, such as lanthanum, are more sensitive to changes in the parameters.