ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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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
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Apr 2025
Jan 2025
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
May 2025
Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Alex Salazar, Massimiliano Fratoni, Joonhong Ahn (Univ of California, Berkeley), Fumio Hirano (JAEA/International Research Inst for Nuclear Decommissioning)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 600-607
The safety assessment of a geological repository for used nuclear fuel must ensure that future generations are shielded from radiation from fission products, in particular those released by re-criticality events. An investigation is required to understand whether or not criticality can actually be achieved. In fulfilling this end, this study assesses the uncertainty in the composition and total mass of precipitates forming in the far-field due to variation in transport parameters. The Latin Hypercube Sampling technique is employed to generate an accurate, random distribution of variables employed in the transport model and to assess the uncertainty of attaining a critical mass. The average characteristics of the damaged fuel from the Fukushima Daiichi reactor cores is used as the reference waste form. Results are compared to the minimum critical masses of previous studies to assess the criticality safety margin.