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
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
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The Nuclear Family: Empowering parents and caregivers
The Diversity and Inclusion in ANS Committee is hosting a webinar today to celebrate the contributions of parents in the nuclear industry while fostering diversity and inclusion within the community.
Register now: The webinar, from 1:00-2:00 pm ET, will highlight how the nuclear industry supports caregivers, new parents, and new mothers, and will focus on life transitions and parental responsibilities.
Una Baker, Marisol Garrouste, Sooyoung Choi, Gabriel J. Soto, Ross Snuggerud, Brendan Kochunas, Ben Lindley
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 1 | January 2024 | Pages 1-22
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2216973
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The NuScale small modular reactor (SMR) has been modeled using the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications multiphysics environment and the results compared with the publicly reported data in the Design Certification Application. The results show an excellent agreement for the compared axial and radial power distributions, temperature coefficients of reactivity, boron and control rod worths, and fast neutron flux. This NuScale model is then used to investigate the effect of different operational modes on reactor components to determine how the flexible load-following operation may affect control rod and reactor pressure vessel (RPV) lifetimes. The control rod degradation is confirmed to primarily affect the silver-indium-cadmium rod tip. The degradation rate is observed to follow a nonlinear function of core power level where the increase in degradation decreases with insertion depth.
For the variation in core power levels expected with current load-following schemes, the total control rod degradation is found to be mild, at 5% to 10% of usable life per cycle for a reactor operating at <80% power. Nonetheless, this enables load-following strategies to be confirmed and/or modified to ensure that control rods do not need to be replaced during the 60+ year life of the reactor. The RPV degradation was found to be almost directly proportional to the core power level and was not overly sensitive to flux shape perturbations. Future work is planned using these damage functions to optimize operation over multiple NuScale SMR units and to develop strategies for prognostics and health management.