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
Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
Jordan D. Rader, M. Scott Greenwood, Paul W. Humrickhouse
Nuclear Technology | Volume 203 | Number 1 | July 2018 | Pages 58-65
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1431505
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tritium transport in metal and molten salt fluids combined with diffusion through high-temperature structural materials is an important phenomenon in both magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) and molten salt reactor (MSR) applications. For MCF, tritium is desirable to capture for fusion fuel. For MSRs, uncaptured tritium potentially can be released to the environment. In either application, quantifying the time- and space-dependent tritium concentration in the working fluid(s) and structural components is necessary.
Whereas capability exists specifically for calculating tritium transport in such systems (e.g., using TMAP for fusion reactors), it is desirable to unify the calculation of tritium transport with other system variables such as dynamic fluid and structure temperature combined with control systems such as those that might be found in a system code. Some capability for radioactive trace substance transport exists in thermal-hydraulic systems codes (e.g., RELAP5-3D); however, this capability is not coupled to species diffusion through solids. Combined calculations of tritium transport and thermal-hydraulic solution have been demonstrated with TRIDENT but only for a specific type of MSR.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a set of Modelica-based dynamic system modeling tools called TRANsient Simulation Framework Of Reconfigurable Models (TRANSFORM) that were used previously to model advanced fission reactors and associated systems. In this system, the augmented TRANSFORM library includes dynamically coupled fluid and solid trace substance transport and diffusion. Results from simulations are compared against analytical solutions for verification.