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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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
NRC engineers share their expertise at the University of Puerto Rico
Robert Roche-Rivera and Marcos Rolón-Acevedo are licensed professional engineers who work at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They are also alumni of the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez (UPRM) and have been sharing their knowledge and experience with students at their alma mater since last year, serving as adjunct professors in the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. During the 2023–2024 school year, they each taught two courses: Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Nuclear Power Plant Engineering.
A. Rashkovan, D. McClure, D. R. Novog
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 177 | Number 2 | June 2014 | Pages 141-155
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE13-4
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Grid spacers within nuclear fuel assemblies play a critical role in fuel performance and contribute to safety margins by enhancing the margin to the critical heat flux. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency has organized a computational benchmark wherein the prediction of flows and turbulence downstream of a mixing-type grid spacer are examined. Studies performed by McMaster University using STAR-CCM+ for the final submission to this MATiS-H blind benchmark exercise related to inter-subchannel mixing and turbulence are presented in this paper. The rationale behind the choice of the computational scheme along with comparisons of the submitted results to the experiments is reported. The goal at the outset of the study was to obtain a reasonably accurate solution with a minimum number of nodes and appropriate turbulence models such that the results would be relevant for engineering applications that include property variations and heat transfer. As such, advanced modeling methods such as large eddy simulation and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) were not included within the scope of the models tested. However, URANS was used to study some specific separate-effect flow features within the grid spacer, and these tests were compared to their steady counterparts.
A comprehensive separate-effect study was performed first in order to finalize the computational scheme for the submission. Several partial geometries were studied for steady and unsteady behavior as well as for mesh sensitivity, turbulence, and wall modeling effects. A series of successively more complex simulations, sometimes involving unsteady modeling, was performed up to and including a study of similar 5 × 5 rod bundle geometry reported in the literature. The final submission results are presented in the paper and are compared with the benchmark data that have recently been released.