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
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
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.
G. D. Latimer, W. R. Marcum, W. F. Jones
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 9 | September 2020 | Pages 1374-1384
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1712158
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this study a series of experiments were performed subjecting surrogate nuclear fuel rods to high-pressure transients to induce fuel dispersion representative of the expected conditions of a fuel rod during a hypothetical loss-of-coolant accident. Experiments were conducted on like-for-like pressurized water reactor geometries in both a single-rod and rod-bundle configuration. In the rod-bundle configuration, a matched index of refraction techniques was employed to provide optical access to the bundle internals and to view the surrogate fuel dispersion event. Both configurations used small lead pellets as a surrogate fuel and were observed with a high-speed camera to capture the transient on a resolved timescale. For the single-rod experiments, the test rod was subjected to pressure transients at 4.0, 8.0, and 12.0 MPa multiple times, and for the rod-bundle experiments, the rod was subjected to 8.0 MPa transients in order to compare mechanical behavior against the single-rod test at 8.0 MPa. For both configurations, the results showed highly variable behavior in both the quantity of fuel dispersed and the mean displacement relative to the burst rod origin, likely due to statistical variations in the internal fuel stack orientation. Measurements of the rod plenum internal pressure showed no discernible difference in depressurization rates at a given pressure, indicating the likelihood that the mass flow rate is limited by the valve orifice in the current experimental configuration. The bundle tests also showed that a 5 × 5 array appears to be too small to capture the full spatial distribution of dispersed fuel, thus future tests will employ a larger bundle size and particle collection technique.