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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.
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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.
T. Ozawa, T. Abe
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 152 | Number 1 | January 2006 | Pages 37-47
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE06-A2561
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to improve fast reactor performance, optimization of the design margin is required. Consequently, a probabilistic method for fuel rod design is being considered, and the Baysian Oriented Fuel Rod Performance Evaluation (BORNFREE) probabilistic code, which computed the statistical responses of several performance parameters concerning fuel rod integrity, was developed. The probability that the performance parameter exceeds the criterion and the design margin can be quantitatively estimated by using this code. In this study, uncertainties that affect the cladding stress, which is one of the performance parameters that restricts the lifetime of a fuel rod, were statistically simulated, and the probabilistic results were compared with the deterministic results of the conventional method. As a result of the trial computation, it was confirmed that the deterministic results were adequately conservative and exceeded the 3 upper level of the probabilistic results for any case. Furthermore, the deterministic results showed significant overestimation as compared with the probabilistic results. Consequently, it is suggested that the probabilistic method is a feasible option to optimize the design evaluation to expand the lifetime of a fuel rod.