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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
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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
February 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Feinstein Institutes to research novel radiation countermeasure
The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, home of the research institutes of New York’s Northwell Health, announced it has received a five-year, $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the potential of human ghrelin, a naturally occurring hormone, as a medical countermeasure against radiation-induced gastrointestinal syndrome (GI-ARS).
Grégory Perret, Damar Wicaksono, Ivor D. Clifford, Hakim Ferroukhi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 4 | April 2022 | Pages 711-722
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1936879
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Best estimate plus uncertainty for the safety assessment of nuclear power plant transient requires, among others, estimating the probability density function (PDF) of physical model parameters in thermal-hydraulic system codes. In that context, Bayesian calibration based on experimental data from separate-effect test facilities are increasingly popular to inform the PDF of a single thermal-hydraulic phenomenon. These calibrations are, however, time intensive, especially when considering multiple time-dependent outputs. Calibrating on many tests with different boundary conditions and potentially different phenomena to derive PDFs applicable to complex transients appears intractable, even using hierarchical modeling. In this paper, we start investigating this problem by considering a set of Flooding Experiments with Blocked Arrays reflood tests with different boundary conditions. We use TRACE v5.0p3 to model time- and space-dependent temperature profiles, pressure drops, and liquid carry-over. Global sensitivity analysis helps screen out noninfluential parameters and gain a detailed understanding of the modeled physics of reflood. The analysis shows that, for all tests, the outputs were sensitive to a similar set of influential model parameters. In turn, Bayesian calibration yields similar posterior PDFs for the influential parameters, and forward propagation of these posterior PDFs yields similar confidence intervals. As such, the information of the investigated tests can well be represented by a unique posterior PDF. Such simplifications, although not general, are welcome to help manage the intensive calibration effort necessary for dealing with complex thermal-hydraulic transients encountered in nuclear power plants.