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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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!
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August 2024
Latest News
New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates
This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.
Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.
Constantine P. Tzanos, Elias P. Gyftopoulos, Michael J. Driscoll
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 52 | Number 1 | September 1973 | Pages 84-94
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE73-3
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An iterative optimization method based on linearization and linear programming is developed. The method can be used for the determination of the material distributions in a fast reactor which maximize or minimize integral reactor parameters that are linear functions of the neutron flux and the material volume fractions. The method has been applied to the problems of optimization of the fuel distribution in a reactor of fixed power output, constrained power density, and constrained material volume fractions so as to obtain (a) a maximum initial breeding gain, (b) a minimum critical mass, and (c) a minimum sodium void reactivity. Under this realistic set of constraints, numerical results show that the same fuel distribution yields maximum breeding gain, minimum critical mass, minimum sodium void reactivity, and uniform power density.