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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
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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May 2024
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Fusion Energy Week begins today
Fusion is riding a surge of attention that began in December 2022 when researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition. The organizers of Fusion Energy Week—a group called the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team—on the other hand, trace fusion development back 100 years to the doctoral research of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered that stars, including our Sun, are mostly made of hydrogen and helium, which in turn led to the understanding that those elements are the “fuel” of potential fusion energy systems on Earth. In recognition of Payne-Gaposchkin’s birthday—May 10—the U.S. Fusion Outreach Team plans to hold a “grassroots celebration of fusion energy” May 6–10, 2024, and annually during the second week of May.
Dawn E. Janney, Steven L. Hayes
Nuclear Technology | Volume 203 | Number 2 | August 2018 | Pages 109-128
Critical Review | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1435137
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
More than 14 000 U-10Zr fuel rods (alloys of U with 10 wt% Zr) were irradiated in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II and Fast Flux Test Facility, with some irradiated to burnups of almost 20 at. %. However, very little information about properties of unirradiated U-10Zr alloys is available. These data are needed to help with interpretation of data from irradiated materials, to develop and validate phase diagrams and models of U-Zr and more complex systems, to inform and validate fuel performance codes, to design fuels for future fast reactors, and to guide future experimental investigations to fill in crucial gaps in knowledge.
This paper provides a summary and critical review of the available experimental data on phases and phase diagrams, electrical properties, thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, heat capacity, mechanical properties, vapor pressures, and thermodynamic properties of unirradiated U-10Zr alloys. Many of the reported values were published before approximately 1970 and are available only in obscure reports. This critical review concludes by identifying areas where additional experimental measurements are particularly necessary and makes recommendations on prioritization of new measurements with a view to the emerging needs associated with the mechanistic modeling of nuclear fuels and their performance.