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Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
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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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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.
David Hanlon, Nigel Smith, Jim Gulliford
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 145 | Number 1 | September 2003 | Pages 120-131
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE03-A2368
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Modern nuclear criticality safety analysis places great reliance on calculations performed using computer codes, in particular, those employing the Monte Carlo method of solution. In the United Kingdom the acknowledged standard Monte Carlo code for criticality safety assessment is MONK. The accuracy achievable with MONK is ultimately governed by the accuracy of the nuclear data employed and their representation within the code nuclear data library. The U.K. industry uses JEFF-based libraries, taking advantage of modern nuclear data evaluations. Following the release of a frozen version of the library (JEF2.2), a program of work was undertaken in the United Kingdom to develop nuclear data libraries for use in reactor physics, shielding, and criticality application codes and to provide benchmark evidence to support their use. For criticality, this involved developing a hyper-fine-group energy library for the MONK code and undertaking a large program of comparison calculations for selected international experiments. A significant contribution to this validation effort has been the high-quality experimental data from the International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) International Handbook of Evaluated Critical Safety Benchmark Experiments. This paper summarizes the work involved in arriving at the current stage whereby the use of MONK in conjunction with a JEF2.2-based library is accepted within the U.K. nuclear industry. Specific examples are given, where ICSBEP has provided experimental evaluations for application areas previously unsupported by more traditional experimental data sources.