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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
2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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 new build procurement considerations
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best time to enhance the ability to support operations and maintenance for a new plant is before construction starts. This is one of many lessons learned by the currently operating nuclear fleet. As construction and startup of many nuclear facilities was completed, it quickly became evident that the ability to efficiently support operations and maintenance was limited. Most of the information necessary to establish and manage procurement of spare and replacement items, maintenance, and configuration of the facilities was unavailable and had to be gathered on a case-by-case, “on-demand” basis. Absence of necessary information and the associated challenges resulted in the need for staff augmentation and multiyear-long projects to develop equipment bills of material and maintenance programs and to perform technical evaluations for the huge quantities of spare and replacement items being requested.
Muhammad Ishaq, Muhammad Ilyas, Alam Nawaz Khan Wardag, Muhammad Zaman, Mansoor H. Inayat
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 6 | June 2023 | Pages 1071-1099
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2139565
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The main aim of the natural circulation of the primary coolant in a nuclear reactor is to reject heat from the reactor core to the steam generator without using a circulation pump. In this work, a vertical heater–vertical cooler, high-temperature, high-pressure, nonuniform-diameter, single-phase natural circulation loop is proposed. The rig contains a spacer grid assembly of electrical heaters in a core with a conical section in its upper plenum and a double helical coil steam generator. The proposed loop is analyzed using RELAP5 and various analytical models. First, these models are benchmarked with experimental data from the Facility to Investigate Natural Circulation in SMART or FINCLS. The model results are found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. The same models are then employed to investigate the proposed natural circulation facility, named the Integral PWR-type SMR Test Rig (iPSTR), to investigate the mass flow rate as a function of geometric and process parameters. Core power input was varied from 5 to 82.5 kW at a maximum system pressure of 10 bar and a maximum elevation difference of thermal centers of 3400 mm. Elevation differences of the thermal centers and diameter of core are found to be important parameters that affect thermal-hydraulic performance significantly. However, cone angle, spacer grid, and system pressure are found to have no significant effect on the performance of the iPSTR. Moreover, the proposed iPSTR is found to possess higher Reynolds number compared with the existing facilities.