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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.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Bin Zhang, Mengwei Zhang, Cheng Peng, Jianqiang Shan, Baowen Yang, Yonggang Cao, Lixia Ren
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 193 | Number 1 | January-February 2019 | Pages 115-130
Technical Paper - Selected papers from NURETH 2017 | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2018.1514177
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear reactor severe accidents can lead to the release of a large amount of radioactive material and cause immense disaster to the environment. Based on a heat conduction model, the DEBRIS-HT program for analyzing the heat transfer characteristics of a debris bed after a severe accident of a sodium-cooled fast reactor was developed. The basic methodology of the DEBRIS-HT program is to simplify the complex energy transfer process in the debris bed to a simple heat transfer problem by solving the equivalent thermal conductivity in different situations. In this paper, the models of the DEBRIS-HT code are explained in detail. The comparison between the simulation and experimental results shows that the DEBRIS-HT program can correctly estimate the heat transfer process in the debris bed. In addition, the DEBRIS-HT code is applied to model the core catcher of the China fast reactor. The calculated dryout heat flux of the postulated accident, in which 100% of core melts and drops on the core catcher, agrees well with the prediction result of the Lipinski’s zero-dimensional model. And the error between them is about 10%. The calculated dependence of dryout heat flux on particle size is also in good consistence with the prediction by Lipinski’s zero-dimensional model. Then, the temperature distribution and the temperature excursion of the debris bed during a likely accident are analyzed, which provides significant reference to the severe accident analysis.