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Division Spotlight
Human Factors, Instrumentation & Controls
Improving task performance, system reliability, system and personnel safety, efficiency, and effectiveness are the division's main objectives. Its major areas of interest include task design, procedures, training, instrument and control layout and placement, stress control, anthropometrics, psychological input, and motivation.
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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August 2024
Nuclear Technology
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Latest News
ARPA-E announces $40 million to develop transmutation technologies for UNF
The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) announced $40 million in funding to develop cutting-edge technologies to enable the transmutation of used nuclear fuel into less-radioactive substances. According to ARPA-E, the new initiative addresses one of the agency’s core goals as outlined by Congress: to provide transformative solutions to improve the management, cleanup, and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.
M. Andersson, D. Blanchet, H. Nylén, R. Jacqmin
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 185 | Number 2 | February 2017 | Pages 263-276
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2016.1272358
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In axially heterogeneous fast reactor concepts, such as the Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration (ASTRID) CFV (French acronym of Coeur à Faible effet de Vide sodium, meaning low sodium void effect core) core, the accurate neutronic prediction of control rods is a challenge. In such cores, the performance of the classical two-dimensional (2-D) equivalence procedure, used for control rod homogenization in homogeneous fast reactors, is questionable.
In this work (part I of two companion papers), a number of axially heterogeneous environments, representative of a CFV-type core, are investigated using 2-D (X-Z) models, with the objective to distinguish regions where the classical equivalence procedure is valid from those where it is not.
It is found that the environments that affect the control rod absorber the most, and are likely to invalidate the procedure, are the internal control rod interfaces, such as the absorber/follower interface and the interface between zones of different boron enrichments. The range of the main spectral impact could be seen within 0 to 10 cm from the material interfaces studied.
In the companion paper (part II), a full-core investigation is performed that builds upon the results of this paper.