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.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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
Dec 2025
Jul 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
January 2026
Nuclear Technology
December 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
November 2025
Latest News
What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
Dongjune Chang, Maolong Liu, Youho Lee (Univ of New Mexico)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 212-226
A Loss of Flow Accident (LOFA) is an accident that causes cooling to slow down due to pump failure or stopping during operation. A fast or slow change in two-phase flow, when overlooked, can lead to an accident like LOFA, and thus, understanding its nature is essential for nuclear reactor safety. In this paper, we demonstrate that using one of the machine learning techniques called Support Vector Machine, one can find the most important factors in two-phase flow change. Using one of the commercial thermal hydraulics analysis code, MARS (A multi-dimensional thermal-hydraulic system code), simulation results were obtained for several scenarios where the mass flow rate decreased sharply. The transient flow change phenomenon near a single PWR rod, which is the simplest case of the reactor, is modeled. The outlet temperature of the coolant which is the final output factor of the transient flow change and the peak temperature of the cladding rod are very important factors for safety analysis. We also show that the outlet temperature profile of the coolant can be used to predict the unknown mass flux and the peak temperature of the cladding rod using the Multi-class Support vector machine algorithm. These results suggest that machine learning techniques may be used to analyze the complex systems of accidents that may occur in the nuclear system.