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
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
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
M. Yousif Alhaj, Alya Badawi, Hanaa H. Abou-Gabal, Nader M. A. Mohamed
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 3 | June 2016 | Pages 314-323
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-78
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This research focuses on the utilization of thorium-plutonium fuel in pressurized water reactors (PWRs). The reference PWR selected in this research was the Westinghouse AP1000. Thorium-plutonium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies partially replaced the uranium oxide fuel assemblies to reduce uranium demand. The cases studied contained 36, 48, 60, 72, and 84 thorium-plutonium MOX fuel assemblies, with the rest of the 193 fuel assemblies loaded with UO2 fuel. The core cycle length, the amount of plutonium incinerated, the amount of generated 233U in the spent fuel, and the conversion ratios were determined using MCNP6. For the different cases, safety parameters such as the power peaking factor and delayed neutron fraction (βeff) were evaluated. The study showed that using thorium-plutonium MOX can achieve good peaking power factors with delayed neutron fractions within the safety limits. Also a conversion factor of about 10% was achieved.