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
Thermal Hydraulics
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.
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.
Yuh-Ming Ferng, Tay-Jian Liu, Chien-Hsiung Lee
Nuclear Technology | Volume 116 | Number 1 | October 1996 | Pages 66-77
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT96-A35312
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Thermal-hydraulic responses in the station blackout experiment conducted at the IIST facility are simulated through the use of the advanced system code RELAP5/MOD3. Typical behaviors occurring in the IIST station blackout transient are characterized by secondary boiloff, primary saturation and pressurization, and subsequent core uncovery and heatup. As the coolant inventory within the steam generator secondary system boils dry, the primary system pressure increases as a result of degradation of the heat removal ability of the steam generator secondary side. This pressurization phenomenon causes the pressurizer safety valve to open and the primary coolant to deplete through the valve, causing the core to eventually become uncovered. The same response can be exactly simulated by the current model. The current calculated results show fairly good agreement with the experimental data, but the timing of the events occurring in the station blackout transient is calculated earlier than the measured value. The overall comparison of key parameters between the calculated results and IIST test data, however, reveals that the current RELAP5/MOD3 model can provide reasonable station blackout modeling for simulating longterm system behavior.