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
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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
Feb 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Upendra S. Rohatgi, Jae H. Jo, Bub Dong Chung, Hiroshi Takahashi, Thomas J. Downar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 145 | Number 1 | January 2004 | Pages 18-27
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3457
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Safety analyses of a proliferation-resistant, economically competitive, high-conversion boiling water reactor (HCBWR) fueled with fissile plutonium and fertile thorium oxide fuel elements, and with passive safety systems, are presented here. The HCBWR developed here is characterized by a very tight lattice with a relatively small water volume fraction in the core that therefore operates with a fast reactor neutron spectrum and a considerably improved neutron economy compared to the current generation of light water reactors. The tight lattice core has a very narrow flow channel with a hydraulic diameter less than half of the regular boiling water reactor (BWR) core and, thus, presents a special challenge to core cooling because of reduced water inventory and high friction in the core. The primary safety concern when reducing the moderator-to-fuel ratio and when using a tightly packed lattice arrangement is to maintain adequate cooling of the core during both normal operation and accident scenarios.In the preliminary HCBWR design, the core is placed in a vessel with a large chimney section, and the vessel is connected to the isolation condenser system (ICS). The vessel is placed in containment with the gravity driven cooling system (GDCS) and passive containment cooling system (PCCS) in a configuration similar to General Electric's simplified BWR (SBWR). The safety systems are similar to those of the SBWR; the ICS and PCCS are scaled with power. An internal recirculation pump is placed in the downcomer to augment the buoyancy head provided by the chimney since the buoyancy provided by the chimney alone could not generate sufficient recirculation in the vessel as the tight lattice configuration results in much larger friction in the core than with the SBWR.The constitutive relationships for RELAP5 are assessed for narrow channels, and as a result the heat transfer package is modified. The modified RELAP5 is used to simulate and analyze two of the most limiting events for a tight pitch lattice core: the station blackout and the main-steam-line-break events. The results of the analyses indicate that the HCBWR system will be safely brought to the shutdown condition for these transients.
