ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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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
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!
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Latest News
TerraPower begins U.K. regulatory approval process
Seattle-based TerraPower signaled its interest this week in building its Natrium small modular reactor in the United Kingdom, the company announced.
TerraPower sent a letter to the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, formally establishing its intention to enter the U.K. generic design assessment (GDA) process. This is TerraPower’s first step in deployment of its Natrium technology—a 345-MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt energy storage unit—on the international stage.
Michel Bloch, Daniel Dussarté, Jean-Louis Pierrey
Nuclear Technology | Volume 84 | Number 3 | March 1989 | Pages 282-284
Technical Paper | Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Risk Management / Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34211
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Premature aging of the heat exchange tubes in steam generators due to stress corrosion may be a common cause of nonsimultaneous multiple ruptures, enhancing the risk associated with that accidental situation. Classical methods for probabilistic evaluation are not easily applicable to this type of problem. The component lifetime can be used directly as a primary random variable with a distribution width (mean value irrelevant) deduced from operational data or engineering judgment. The conditional probability to get one or more ruptures before a critical time following the occurrence of the first rupture can be obtained from the probability laws for the time intervals between the first and successive ruptures and can be used in accident sequence analyses. As an example, the conditional probability of the second rupture is approximately proportional to the critical time and is ∼10−4 for a lifetime distribution standard deviation of 15 000 h and a critical time of 1 h.