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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Latest News
Diablo Canyon gets key state approval
Pacific Gas & Electric has announced that the California Coastal Commission, the state agency in charge of protecting California’s roughly 840 miles of coastline, unanimously voted to approve the Act Consistency Certification and Coastal Development Permit for Diablo Canyon, a critical step in the utility’s work to extend the life of the nuclear power plant.
Jun-Yun Yang, Xiao Gang, Yang-Jun Ying
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 182 | Number 4 | April 2016 | Pages 538-554
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-44
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A code called CriSAA used for criticality excursion evaluation and analysis is developed by coupling a two-dimensional thermal-hydraulic code and a zero-dimensional neutron kinetics code. The generalized semi-Markov process simulation method is improved in the neutron kinetics code, which makes it suitable for the transient cases of both stochastic and intense neutron fields. Pulse withdrawal experiments and ramp feed experiments performed on the Transient Experiment Critical Facility (TRACY) are simulated with CriSAA. The transient characteristics of isolated and open criticality excursions on TRACY are studied. The simulation fits well with the experiments. Stochastic phenomena of the criticality excursions under a weak source case are studied. The statistics characteristics, including time and energy to first peak, power of first peak, and total energy, are shown. This work provides an advanced approach for criticality excursion evaluation and analysis.