Nuclear Technology

Advanced Reactor Design and Analysis

The global nuclear energy landscape is undergoing significant transformation, driven by growing demands for reliable, secure, and low-carbon energy and rapid advances in reactor technologies. Advanced reactor concepts, including small modular reactors, microreactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, molten salt reactors, and fast reactors, are being actively developed to offer enhanced safety, improved resource utilization, greater operational flexibility, and broader applications beyond electricity generation. Translating these concepts into deployable technologies requires continued advances in reactor design and analysis to address complex, coupled phenomena involving reactor physics, thermal-hydraulics, fuels and materials, safety, and control. Meanwhile, advances in high-performance computing, multiphysics modeling and simulation, and data-driven methods are creating new opportunities to improve the accuracy, efficiency, and integration of advanced reactor design and analysis.

The successful development and deployment of advanced reactors depend on the ability to reliably predict their behavior across a wide range of operating and accident conditions. Many advanced concepts introduce new fuels, coolants, materials, geometries, and passive safety features that challenge established modeling approaches and require improved methods for design, analysis, and validation. Accurate and efficient computational capabilities are therefore essential for optimizing reactor performance, demonstrating safety margins, supporting licensing, and reducing development time and cost. Equally important is the integration of traditionally separate disciplines through multiphysics and multiscale approaches to capture complex interactions governing reactor behavior. Continued innovation in these areas will provide a stronger technical foundation for translating promising reactor concepts into safe, practical, and economically viable nuclear energy systems.

This Article Collection seeks contributions addressing recent advances in the design, analysis, modeling, and evaluation of advanced nuclear reactor systems. Topics of interest include innovative reactor concepts; reactor physics and neutronics; thermal-hydraulics; multiphysics and multiscale modeling; advanced fuels and materials; reactor dynamics, control, and monitoring; safety and accident analysis; uncertainty quantification; and verification and validation.  Emerging computational approaches, including high-performance computing, reduced-order modeling, digital twins, and artificial intelligence and machine learning, are also encouraged. The Collection welcomes studies on small modular reactors, microreactors, molten salt reactors, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, fast reactors, and other advanced concepts. Original Research Articles and Review Articles are particularly encouraged, along with Notes and Rapid Communications reporting focused or timely advances.

5 keywords:

1. Advanced Nuclear Reactors
2. Reactor Design and Analysis
3. Multiphysics Modeling and Simulation
4. Reactor Safety and Performance
5. Advanced Computational Methods

Guest Advisors

Dr. Zeyun Wu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University and Director of the Computational Applied Reactor Physics Laboratory (CARPL). His research focuses on computational reactor physics, advanced reactor design and analysis, multiphysics modeling and simulation, uncertainty quantification, and advanced computational methods for nuclear applications. He has led and contributed to research projects supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and National Nuclear Security Administration. Dr. Wu is actively involved in the American Nuclear Society and serves in technical leadership and editorial roles within the nuclear engineering community.

Dr. Mark D. DeHart, founding director of Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Science and Engineering Department, brings over 36 years of experience in reactor physics and computational methods to ACU’s first Ph.D. program. A Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, he previously led major reactor analysis and multiphysics efforts at Idaho and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. His research spans criticality safety, depletion, and advanced reactor design. At ACU, he is shaping a curriculum that integrates cutting-edge reactor technologies with hands-on research to prepare future leaders in nuclear science.

Pavel V. Tsvetkov, Ph.D., is a Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University. Dr. Tsvetkov’s Advanced Energy Systems Laboratory efforts are focused on novel energy systems meeting global growing needs in sustainable resources.

Disclosure Statement: 

Dr. Zeyun Wu currently serves as an Associate Editor for Annals of Nuclear Energy and as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Nuclear Technology.

Dr. Mark D. DeHart and Dr. Pavel V. Tsvetkov have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

All manuscripts submitted to this Article Collection will undergo a full peer-review; the Guest Advisor for this Collection will not be handling the manuscripts (unless they are an Editorial Board member).

Please review the journal scope and author submission instructions prior to submitting a manuscript.

The deadline for submitting manuscripts is 31 July 2027.

To submit your papers to this Article Collection, please:

1. Check "yes" for the question, "Are you submitting your paper for a specific special issue or article collection?"
2. Select the Article Collection "Advanced Reactor Design and Analysis" from the drop-down menu under the question, "Special Issue or Article Collection Name."

Please contact Jieyu Zheng at Jieyu.Zheng@tandf.co.uk  with any questions relating to this Article Collection.

Article Publishing Charges (APCs)

Open Select Journals that publish open access require payment of an article publishing charge (APC); this includes manuscripts submitted to an Article Collection. APCs vary between journals and may depend on the article type, please refer to our Open Access Cost Finder tool. APCs may also differ from the standard APC if your institution or research funder has an open access publishing agreement or an open access membership with Taylor & Francis.​