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Division Spotlight
Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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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Nuclear Science and Engineering
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.
Carlo Parisi, Zhegang Ma, Diego Mandelli, Nolan Anderson, Hongbin Zhang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 194 | Number 8 | August-September 2020 | Pages 748-770
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1732699
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Accident tolerant fuels (ATFs) are being tested by different nuclear vendors and research organizations, and their introduction into the U.S light water reactor fleet is planned for the second half of the 2020s. Under the framework of the U.S. Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, as part of the LWRS Risk-Informed Systems Analysis Pathway, research is being conducted at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to develop tools and methods that can help the industry to quantify the benefits from adopting ATF technology. In this paper we describe the developed risk-informed methodology including the safety analysis code improvements, and we present some results for selected accident scenarios. The developed methodology combines the INL state-of-the-art deterministic Best Estimate code RELAP5-3D and the probabilistic risk analysis tools RAVEN and SAPHIRE. The analyses are performed on a three-loop pressurized water reactor, simulating station blackout and large-break loss-of-coolant accidents and considering near-term ATFs or iron-chromium-aluminum and chromium-coated clads. Finally, we show how, applying our methodology, the new core damage frequency (CDF) can be assessed. The results indicate that the main benefit in introducing near-term ATFs is a significant reduction in hydrogen production during accident conditions. No significant CDF reduction was found.