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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
N. J. Peters, J. C. McKibben, K. Kutikkad, W. H. Miller
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 171 | Number 3 | July 2012 | Pages 210-219
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-71
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A detailed study at the Missouri University Research Reactor indicates that limitations in the energy balance methodology, using the Monte Carlo N-Particle transport code (MCNP) and the Evaluated Nuclear Data Files (ENDF), affect the accuracy of predicting important parameters for reactor physics studies. In the case of fuel conversion, key parameters such as flux and power level cannot be measured until the converted reactor is operating. Therefore, predictions with well-known uncertainties are essential for an effective conversion. However, due to inherent energy balance problems in the isotopic heating evaluations for materials within various fuel matrices, in particular the U-10Mo monolithic fuel, the values for the predicted parameters could vary more than previously estimated. In particular, the total recoverable energy per fission, which directly affects the calculated flux for a given power level, appears to be underestimated by MCNP's energy balance method. Therefore, an alternative methodology for predicting the total recoverable energy of a system was investigated. Results for the proposed low-enriched uranium U-10Mo configuration show that there is a 3.02-MeV difference between the total recoverable energy per fission from this work and that from the MCNP predictions. A similar comparison for the present highly enriched uranium UAlx configuration shows a difference of 1.24 MeV.
