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Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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Latest News
Norway’s Halden reactor takes first step toward decommissioning
The government of Norway has granted the transfer of the Halden research reactor from the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) to the state agency Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND). The 25-MWt Halden boiling water reactor operated from 1958 to 2018 and was used in the research of nuclear fuel, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.
F. D’Auria
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 5 | May 2023 | Pages 987-999
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2178874
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The development of the AP-1000 design and of its precursor the AP-600 started in the aftermath of the Chernobyl event (1986) when the need came from the scientific and technological community for a resilient system against deliberate threats by humans. The “passive system” design concept became relevant. The first AP-1000 entered into operation around 3 decades after that event. This paper discusses the issue of how much the progress in nuclear science and technology since the end of the 1980s has affected the AP-1000 design. Five interconnected areas are identified: (1) reliability of passive systems, (2) scaling and uncertainty, (3) coupling between three-dimensional neutron physics and thermal hydraulics, (4) consideration of large-break loss-of-coolant accidents, and (5) simulation of instrumentation and control systems. All these areas are relevant for the AP-1000 and standard pressurized water reactors; however, the areas (1) and (2) have specific applicability for the AP-1000 and constitute the main concerns of this paper. The conclusion from qualitative investigation is that the safety demonstration of the AP-1000 did not take full benefit from progress in these areas, namely, inadequacies characterize the scaling database and the processes for determining the reliability of thermal-hydraulic passive systems did not receive proper attention.
