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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
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Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.
Pavel Hejzlar, Neil E. Todreas, Michael J. Driscoll
Nuclear Technology | Volume 113 | Number 2 | February 1996 | Pages 134-144
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35183
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A reactor concept has been developed that can survive loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCAs) without scram and without replenishing primary coolant inventory while maintaining safe temperature limits on the fuel and pressure tube. The proposed concept is a pressure tube reactor of similar design to Canada deuterium uranium reactors but differing in three key aspects. First, a solid silicon carbide-coated graphite fuel matrix is used in place of fuel pin bundles to enable the dissipation of decay heat from the fuel in the absence of primary coolant. Second, the heavy water coolant in the pressure tubes is replaced by light water, which also serves as the moderator. Finally, the calandria tank, surrounded by a graphite reflector, contains a low-pressure gas instead of heavy water moderator, and this normally voided calandria is connected to a light water heat sink. The cover gas displaces the light water from the calandria during normal operation while during a LOCA or loss of heat sink accident, it allows passive calandria flooding. Calandria flooding also provides redundant and diverse reactor shutdown. The fuel elements can operate under post-critical-heat-flux conditions even at full power without exceeding fuel design limits. The heterogeneous arrangement of the fuel and moderator ensures a negative void coefficient under all circumstances. Although light water is used as both coolant and moderator, the reactor exhibits a high degree of neutron thermalization and a large prompt neutron lifetime, similar to D2O-moderated cores. Moreover, the extremely large neutron migration length results in a strongly coupled core with a flat thermal flux profile and inherent stability against xenon spatial oscillations.