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Aerospace Nuclear Science & Technology
Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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
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.
Jieun Lee, Paolo Balestra, Yassin A. Hassan, Robert Muyshondt, Duy Thien Nguyen, Richard Skifton
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 12 | December 2022 | Pages 1769-1805
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2081482
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The verification and validation of Pronghorn is imperative for predicting the fluid velocity, pressure, and temperature in advanced reactors, specifically high-temperature gas-cooled reactors. Pronghorn is a coarse-mesh, intermediate-fidelity, multidimensional thermal-hydraulic code developed by Idaho National Laboratory. The Pronghorn incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are validated by using the pressure drop measurements and axial velocity averaged from the particle image velocimetry data obtained at the engineering-scale pebble bed facility at Texas A&M University.
Pronghorn and STAR-CCM+ porous media models using the Handley, Kerntechnischer Ausschuss, and Carman correlations comparably estimate the pressure drop better than other functions with a maximum 3.34% average relative difference compared to the experimental measurements. The precise average pebble bed porosity estimation has a large impact on the pressure drop. The implementation of the volume-averaged porosity in several sectors, with each sector’s thickness larger than the representative elementary length, has the potential to improve pressure drop modeling or provide more detailed velocity profiles in nuclear reactors with high aspect ratios. The wall effects can be considered using this approach, applying the relatively higher volume-averaged porosity near walls. In addition, the pressure gradients and volume- or surface-averaged axial velocities from the realizable two-layer and shear stress transport models are in good agreement with the porous media simulations and particle image velocimetry data.
