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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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!
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Latest News
El Salvador: Looking to nuclear
In 2022, El Salvador’s leadership decided to expand its modest, mostly hydro- and geothermal-based electricity system, which is supported by expensive imported natural gas and diesel generation. They chose to use advanced nuclear reactors, preferably fueled by thorium-based fuels, to power their civilian efforts. The choice of thorium was made to inform the world that the reactor program was for civilian purposes only, and so they chose a fuel that was plentiful, easy to source and work with, and not a proliferation risk.
W. Van Snyder
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 9 | September 2022 | Pages 1416-1432
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.2024023
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new form for metallic nuclear reactor fuel is proposed consisting of finely divided particles (tens of micrometers) mixed with sodium for thermal bond. Fuel pins filled with this form of fuel would have greater fuel density than with solid slugs fabricated at 75% smear density. Greater fuel density reduces enrichment requirements for initial fuel loading. A larger surface-to-volume ratio allows more fission product gases and metallic fission products to diffuse out of fuel particles, resulting in less swelling, greater burnup before processing, and simple preliminary thermomechanical spent fuel processing steps that might be used several times before the more expensive pyroelectric process develolped for the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II). Less frequent pyroelectric processing, simple preliminary processing, and a larger surface-to-volume ratio reduce total processing cost. Preliminary processing produces separate fission products, in particular cesium and strontium, in metallic rather than salt or mineral form, thereby simplifying and reducing storage cost. Intrinsically structurally weak fuel would not rupture fuel pin cladding by swelling. The expense and complexity of the process would be offset by reduced total system cost.