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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
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
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
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.
M. Marseguerra, E. Zio, F. Cadini
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 155 | Number 3 | March 2007 | Pages 386-394
Technical Paper | Mathematics and Computation, Supercomputing, Reactor Physics and Nuclear and Biological Applications | doi.org/10.13182/NSE07-A2671
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Inefficient control of the water level in a steam generator of a nuclear power plant is responsible for frequent unscheduled reactor trips. This problem is particularly critical at low power, when the steam generator exhibits the "swell and shrink" phenomenon and flow rate measurements are highly unreliable. The design of a proper controller capable of avoiding expensive shutdowns is eagerly sought for increasing the availability of the plant. In this paper, we present an extension of an adaptive, stable, fuzzy controller, whose design parameters are optimized via a genetic algorithm. Computer simulations confirm that the devised controller bears good performances in terms of small oscillations and fast settling time even in the presence of steam flow disturbances.