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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2025
Nuclear Technology
September 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NRC’s hybrid AI workshop coming up
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will host a hybrid public workshop on September 24 from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Eastern time to discuss its activities for the safe and secure use of artificial intelligence in NRC-regulated activities.
Jonathan G. Teague, Roberta N. Mulford
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 8 | August 2020 | Pages 1195-1212
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1701345
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Impact testing of general purpose heat sources (GPHSs) and their component GPHS clads is done to benchmark extensive safety calculations quantifying launch safety. Impact testing is done in the Isotope Fuels Impact Tester (IFIT), a large-bore gas gun at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Efforts to conduct an impact test at the extreme low end of the temperature range for launch have highlighted uncertainties in determining the GPHS clad temperature during impact tests. In IFIT impact tests, the GPHS clad temperature is inferred from the temperature of the radiological confinement. Heating tests have been done in the IFIT to determine the fueled clad surface temperature as a function of the surface temperature of the tantalum radiological confinement can. Direct measurement of clad temperatures in the impact configuration are described and the effect of emissivity of the various components indicated. The analytical model used to predict clad temperatures is seen to work well at temperatures above 625°C. Appropriate values of emissivity for use in the model were measured in the experiment. Calculation of the experimental clad impact temperature using the ANSYS thermal transport model is necessary at clad temperatures below 625°C. ANSYS modeling indicates that the clad temperature in a recent low-temperature impact was outside the relevant range for launch safety modeling of GPHS clad behavior.