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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
A. Stanley Thompson, Bruce R. Thompson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 100 | Number 1 | September 1988 | Pages 83-88
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE88-A29017
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The analytical model of nuclear reactor transients, incorporating both mechanical and nuclear effects, simulates reactor kinetics. Linear analysis shows the stability borderline for small power perturbations. In a stable system, initial power disturbances die out with time. With an unstable combination of nuclear and mechanical characteristics, initial disturbances persist and may increase with time. With large instability, oscillations of great magnitude occur. Stability requirements set limits on the power density at which particular reactors can operate. The limiting power density depends largely on the product of two terms: the fraction of delayed neutrons and the frictional damping of vibratory motion in reactor core components. As the fraction of delayed neutrons is essentially fixed, mechanical damping largely determines the maximum power density. A computer program, based on the analytical model, calculates and plots reactor power as a nonlinear function of time in response to assigned valuse of mechanical and nuclear characteristion.