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
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
October 2025
Nuclear Technology
September 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
A. Boulin, J. F. Haquet, P. Piluso (CEA), S. Semenov, M. Antoni (CNRS), T. Washiya, A. Nakayoshi, T. Kitagaki (JAEA)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 1080-1090
In the frame of Severe Accident studies, the VULCANO-facility at PLINIUS-platform (CEA - Cadarache) is devoted to the understanding of the interaction of corium with a concrete containment pit (Molten Corium Concrete Interaction-MCCI) [1]. The VULCANO VF-U1 experiment was designed to be closer as possible of the MCCI conditions possibly occurring in the Fukushima F1 reactor considering the coexistence of two dispersed phases (metallic liquid droplets and gaseous bubbles) in a continuous phase (oxide melt liquid). A MCCI industrial code was used to perform predictive calculation of the VF-U1 experiment, being closer as possible of Fukushima 1-F1 MCCI conditions. The results shown that the axial ablation is 8 times higher than the radial one. Then, a multiplicative factor of 8 for the axial heat exchange coefficient must be applied to find the final cavity shape. VULCANO VF-U1 Post-Test Analyses have shown that the metallic phase is preferably close to the vertical concrete walls and at the bottom of the test section whereas a stratification due to density difference between the oxide and the metallic phase is expected (as modeling by the MCCI code). Regarding to the real coupling physical effects in the integral the VULCANO-ICB test and the difficulties for the MCCI code to reproduce experimental behaviors, numerical simulations were conducted. For this purpose, a multiphase Volume Of Fluid (VOF) code at AMU (MADIREL) has been developed . In these calculations, the corium has been modelled numerically under isothermal conditions as a twodimensional dispersed medium with multiple metal drops and gas bubbles. The results showed a possible hydrodynamic re-localization matching to experimental results.