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
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
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
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.
Luis Rebollo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 103 | Number 1 | July 1993 | Pages 122-130
Technical Note | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34835
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A best-estimate methodology for analysis of an anticipated transient without scram (ATWS) in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) is applied to the simulation of the passive response to postulated ATWS scenarios of the José Cabrera (Zorita) nuclear power plant (NPP) owned and operated by Union Fenosa, which is the only Westinghouse PWR with a single coolant loop. A justification of the calculation hypotheses is included. The results of the specific studies are evaluated, and the conclusion is that the intrinsic safety margins of the original design of the plant guarantees the integrity of the fuel, primary circuit, and containment, without the need to incorporate an automatic ATWS mitigation system. Finally, a suitable plant-specific prototype emergency operating procedure is designed that is substantially different from the previous Zorita NPP procedure and from the generic procedure applicable to multiloop plants. This procedure is validated by simulating the operator-plant interface by means of a validation matrix including the scenarios presenting the most adverse dynamic modes foreseeable.