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
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Zhengyu Huang, Robert M. Edwards
Nuclear Technology | Volume 143 | Number 2 | August 2003 | Pages 132-143
Technical Paper | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technologies | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3403
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Hybrid reactor simulation (HRS) of boiling water reactor (BWR) instabilities, including in-phase and out-of-phase (OOP) oscillations, has been implemented on The Pennsylvania State University TRIGA reactor. The TRIGA reactor's power response is used to simulate reactor neutron dynamics for in-phase oscillation or the fundamental mode of the reactor modal kinetics for OOP oscillations. The reactor power signal drives a real-time boiling channel simulation, and the calculated reactivity feedback is in turn fed into the TRIGA reactor via an experimental changeable reactivity device. The thermal-hydraulic dynamics, together with first harmonic mode power dynamics, is digitally simulated in the real-time environment. The real-time digital simulation of boiling channel thermal hydraulics is performed by solving constitutive equations for different regions in the channel and is realized by a high-performance personal computer. The nonlinearity of the thermal-hydraulic model ensures the capability to simulate the oscillation phenomena, limit cycle and OOP oscillation, in BWR nuclear power plants. By adjusting reactivity feedback gains for both modes, various oscillation combinations can be realized in the experiment. The dynamics of axially lumped power distribution over the core is displayed in three-dimensional graphs. The HRS reactor power response mimics the BWR core-wide power stability phenomena. In the OOP oscillation HRS, the combination of reactor response and the simulated first harmonic power using shaping functions mimics BWR regional power oscillations. With this HRS testbed, a monitoring and/or control system designed for BWR power oscillations can be experimentally tested and verified.