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
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Excelsior University student section awarded community education grant
The American Nuclear Society Student Section at Excelsior University in Albany, N.Y., was awarded a $5,000 grant from the ANS Student Section Strategic Fund initiative for its program, Empowering Tomorrow’s Nuclear Innovators: A Collaborative Approach to Nuclear Technology Education and Awareness.
Davide Papini, Michele Andreani, Pascal Steiner, Bojan Ničeno, Jens-Uwe Klügel, Horst-Michael Prasser
Nuclear Technology | Volume 205 | Number 1 | January-February 2019 | Pages 153-173
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1505356
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The installation of passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARs) in the containment of operating nuclear power plants (NPPs) is increasingly based on three-dimensional studies of severe accidents that accurately predict the hydrogen pathways and local accumulation regions in containment and examine the mitigation effects of the PARs on the hydrogen risk. The GOTHIC (Generation Of Thermal-Hydraulic Information for Containments) code is applied in this paper to study the effectiveness of the PARs installed in the Gösgen NPP in Switzerland. A fast release of a mixture of hydrogen and steam from the hot leg during a total station blackout is chosen as the limiting scenario. The PAR modeling approach is qualified simulating two experiments performed in the frame of the OECD/NEA (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency) THAI (Thermal-hydraulics, Hydrogen, Aerosols and Iodine) project.
The results of the plant analyses show that the recombiners cannot prevent the formation of a stratified cloud of hydrogen (10% molar concentration), but they can mitigate the hydrogen accumulation once formed. In the case of the analyzed fast release scenario, which is characterized by increasing loads with large initial flow rate and high hydrogen concentration values, it is shown that, when a large number of recombiners are installed, the global outcome in relation to the combustion risk does not depend on the details of the single PAR behavior. The hydrogen ignition risk can be fully mitigated in a timeframe ranging from 15 to 30 min after the fast release, according to the dependence of the PAR efficiency model on the adopted parameters.