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Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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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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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.
S. Dulla, P. Ravetto, M. M. Rostagno, G. Bianchini, M. Carta, A. D'Angelo
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 149 | Number 1 | January 2005 | Pages 88-100
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE149-88
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper considers some physical aspects of the neutron space kinetics of critical and source-driven subcritical systems. The possibility of introducing some indicators to qualify the spatial nature of neutronic transients is investigated. It is shown theoretically and then proved by numerical examples that the separation of the eigenvalues of the mathematical operator defining the problem can be taken as a good indicator of the importance of space effects in time-dependent conditions. To obtain good physical insight into the phenomena, paradigmatically simple configurations are considered, and whenever possible, a fully analytical approach is used. The presented results evidence the limits of applicability of classic simplified models for transient analyses, such as point kinetics. In a second part, the paper considers the open problem of the choice of the weighting function to be used either for the generation of the kinetic parameters of pointlike models or for the exploitation of quasi-static procedures, analyzing comparatively the effect of different options on the results of transient calculations.