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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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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.
Matthew A. Jessee, David J. Kropaczek
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 155 | Number 3 | March 2007 | Pages 378-385
Technical Paper | Mathematics and Computation, Supercomputing, Reactor Physics and Nuclear and Biological Applications | doi.org/10.13182/NSE07-A2670
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An optimization method has been developed to determine the optimal fresh fuel rod configurations, fresh streams, and fresh bundle design placements given a known exposed fuel loading pattern and operational strategy for boiling water reactors. The optimization method is based on a first-order approximation of various core parameters, such as hot excess reactivity and critical power ratio, using fuel rod perturbations to the reference fresh bundle designs. A simulated annealing optimization algorithm is shown to produce fresh bundle designs, consisting of rods selected from a user-defined set of rod types that optimize the core design with respect to its design constraints.The method utilizes a linear superposition method based upon sensitivity coefficients to approximate core parameters. A parallel computing system was implemented to decrease wall clock time for the numerous lattice physics and core simulator calculations. A periodic update of the reference bundle design, without the computational burden of updating the sensitivity coefficients, was introduced and is shown to significantly improve the accuracy of the approximation model. Application of the method demonstrates that improved core designs are achieved when a many-fresh bundle design (i.e., stream) solution is considered as part of the design space. Six-stream (and higher) core designs that increase fuel utilization while simultaneously reducing manufacturing costs through reduction of fuel rod types fabricated, previously unattainable with existing methodologies, are now possible.