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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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FPoliSolutions demonstrates RISE, an RIPB systems engineering tool
The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) has held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series. Former RP3C chair N. Prasad Kadambi opened the October 3 meeting with brief introductory remarks about the RP3C and the need for new approaches to nuclear design that go beyond conventional and deterministic methods. He then welcomed this month’s speakers: Mike Mankosa, a project engineer at FPoliSolutions, and Cesare Frepoli, the company’s president, who together presented “Introduction to RISE: A Digital Framework for Maintaining a Risk-Informed Safety Case for Current and Next Generation Nuclear Power Plants.”
Watch the full webinar here.
B. R. Betzler, B. J. Ade, P. K. Jain, A. J. Wysocki, P. C. Chesser, W. M. Kirkland, M. S. Cetiner, A. Bergeron, F. Heidet, K. A. Terrani
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 12 | December 2022 | Pages 1399-1424
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.1996196
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Transformational Challenge Reactor is a 3-MW(thermal) helium-cooled experimental nuclear reactor designed using an additive manufacturing–informed agile design process. This design process leverages rapid prototyping and advanced materials from emerging additive manufacturing technologies, key characteristics that enable rapid design maturation. The resulting core design incorporates a blend of advanced reactor technologies into an intermediate-spectrum microreactor, including conventionally manufactured tristructural isotropic (TRISO) fuel particles in an advanced manufactured SiC fuel element and a solid yttrium hydride moderator encapsulated in steel. Matured during the design effort, these technologies are incorporated with additively manufactured steel support and fluidic structures to form a 75-cm-outer-diameter cylindrical active core region. Below and above the active core region are axial SiC reflectors, which are housed inside the reactor pressure vessel. The reactor is controlled with an annular shroud actuated external to the pressure vessel in the gap between the pressure vessel and a steel radial reflector. A safety rod is at the center of the core to shut down the reactor when necessary. Helium pressurized at 5 MPa is forced into the pressure vessel below the core and around the core to the top plenum before it is forced down through the axial reflectors and the active core region. The primary pressurized helium loop is operated up to 500°C and includes the pressure vessel, the circulator, and the hot side of a helium-to-air heat exchanger. The secondary loop rejects all heat from the primary loop to ambient air through a heat exchanger. A vented temporary confinement building contains the entire primary loop, with penetrations for a stack, cooling, and the secondary ambient air loop. This is the first advanced nuclear microreactor designed using additive manufacturing technologies, demonstrating their applicability in an accelerated advanced design process.