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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.
Sijun Zhang, Xiang Zhao, Zhi Yang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 189 | Number 2 | February 2018 | Pages 135-151
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2017.1388090
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents computational fluid dynamics (CFD) gas flow simulations within a segment of the pebble bed core. The realistic packing structure in an entire pebble bed reactor (PBR) is produced by a means of discrete element method. The packing structure in the segment of the PBR core is then obtained. The gas flow through the voids formed by the packed pebbles is computed by CFD. It is found that the packing structure of pebbles in the PBR is crucial to CFD simulation results. On the other hand, in our numerical simulations both large eddy simulation and Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes models are employed to study the effects of different turbulence models on gas flow field and relevant heat transfer. The calculations indicate the complex flow structure within the voids among the pebbles, which play the key role in heat transfer predictions.