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Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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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
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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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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.
Elsayed A. Mogahed
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 26 | Number 3 | November 1994 | Pages 891-895
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor, Reactor Target, and Driver | Proceedings of the Eleventh Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy New Orleans, Louisiana June 19-23, 1994 | doi.org/10.13182/FST94-A40267
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The thermal-structural behavior and performance of the SIRIUS-P power reactor first wall concept is analyzed. The SIRIUS-P conceptual design study is of a 1.0 GWe laser driven inertial confinement fusion power reactor utilizing near symmetric illumination of direct drive targets. Sixty laser beams providing a total of 3.4 MJ of energy are used at a repetition rate of 6.7 Hz with a nominal target gain of 118. The spherical chamber has an internal radius of 6.5 m and consists of a first wall assembly made from carbon-carbon composite material, and a blanket assembly made of SiC composite material. The chamber is cooled by a flowing granular bed of solid ceramic materials, non-breeding TiO2 for the first wall assembly and breeding Li2O for the blanket assembly. Helium gas (P = 0.15 MPa) is used in a fluidized bed outside the reactor to return the particles to the top of the reactor. A moving bed is chosen over a fluidized bed because of its superior heat transfer capability. The heat transfer in a moving bed depends on the level of agitation and on the effective thermal conductivity of the solid material and the interstitial gas, whereas in a fluidized bed, it is entirely dominated by the thermal conductivity of the carrier gas. This work describes the three-dimensional thermo-structural steady state analysis of the first wall coolant tubes. The performance of the first wall depends, under normal operating conditions, on the thermal loading conditions and internal coolant pressure loading conditions. The analysis utilizes a commercial finite element analysis code with complete 3-D modeling. The analysis shows that the stresses are dominated by bending due to the internal pressure of the He gas; modifying the shape of the tube from purely elliptical at the midplane, while keeping the flow area constant, reduces the stresses. A comparison between the results of this 3-D model with a previous 2-D study shows a pronounced effect on the temperature distribution. On the other hand, the 3-D model has a smaller effect on the stress distribution. In general the design examined is shown to be capable of withstanding the loading conditions imposed, although the effect of such factors as pulsed or partially loaded operation should be carefully examined.
