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
Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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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Jul 2024
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
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Latest News
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has since been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that Unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. local time on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
Jun Liao, Danial Utley (Westinghouse)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 117-130
Westinghouse Electric Company is developing its Next Generation of high-capacity nuclear power plant based on Lead Fast Reactor (LFR) technology: a Generation IV, compact, highly simplified, passively safe, and scalable nuclear power plant. In addition to superior economics for enabling competitiveness even in the most challenging electricity market, exceptional safety performance is actively pursued in the design of the plant, leveraging the inherent favorable properties of lead coolant as well as safety features intrinsic in the design. Being decay heat removal an integral part of any plant’s safety philosophy, a systematic process of concept selection has been employed across a wide variety of decay heat removal system designs. Among them, air cooling outside of the reactor vessel is one of the concepts that is being actively evaluated by Westinghouse. In this paper, the use of air cooling in nuclear reactors is discussed together with the identification of benefits and challenges associated with reactor vessel air cooling in LFR technology. The heat removal capability of this system is assessed with three computer codes, differing in complexity and suitability to “rapid prototyping” design activities carried out by Westinghouse during different phases of plant design. Though the computer codes were developed separately, the results of the three evaluation models tend to support each other, thus increasing the confidence in the information provided to progress the Westinghouse LFR design and establish its safety basis. Additional validation through existing and potentially new test data is foreseen as future work within the Westinghouse LFR program.