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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
M. S. Kazimi
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 103 | Number 1 | September 1989 | Pages 59-69
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE89-A23660
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An assessment is presented for the thermal attack on the MARK-I boiling water reactor steel containment shell by core melt materials ejected from the vessel in a severe accident. The cooling of the core melt as it spreads and transfers heat to the concrete floor of the drywell is evaluated. It is found that the melt temperature may reach the freezing point before the melt contacts the shell, particularly if the melt was mostly oxidic or was ejected at moderate rates. The heat fluxes from the melt to the liner that can be withstood are evaluated, with and without a pool of water overlying the melt. With water above the melt, if the superheat in a mostly metallic melt is moderate to allow for the formation of a crust at the interface with the shell, the shell may survive the attack by a shallow melt layer (up to 10 cm deep). The potential for survival is much better if the melt was composed mostly of oxidic materials.