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Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
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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.
Samyak S. Munot, Arun K. Nayak
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 198 | Number 3 | March 2024 | Pages 735-748
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2197015
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A severe accident involving core melt in a nuclear reactor is a major concern especially after Fukushima. Thus, to mitigate the effects of core melt accidents, an ex-vessel core catcher is being developed for Advanced Indian Nuclear Reactors. The core catcher design envisages using special refractory material. The cooling strategy of the core catcher is one of the key components in the design of the core catcher. Performing a full-scale prototypic experiment is extremely challenging and prohibitory due to the involvement of very high temperature and presence of radioactive materials. Therefore, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model capable of simulating the coolability of the melt pool is important to develop. In the present work, a two-dimensional (2D) CFD model was developed to understand the heat transfer phenomenon and solidification of the heat-generating simulant melt pool. The 2D symmetry geometry of the simulated core catcher vessel was used. The CFD model considers appropriate models for melting and solidification to understand crust formation in the melt pool and the k-ε turbulence model to resolve turbulence inside the melt pool. A decay heat of 1 MW/m3 was also considered inside the melt pool. The CFD simulation results were compared with the authors’ experimental results. The experiment involved a scaled-down ex-vessel core catcher model (CCM) employing electrical heaters to simulate decay heat. The experiment was carried out by melting about 25 L of sodium borosilicate glass using a cold crucible induction furnace at about 1200°C and cooling it in the scaled-down CCM. The scaled-down CCM was strategically cooled in three phases, namely, air cooled, indirect side cooling, and complete top flooding. To overcome the complexities of simulation of the initial melt pour condition, the CFD simulation was initialized with the temperatures just after the melt pour was completed in the experiment. Similar to the experimental conditions, the CFD simulations were carried out in three phases by changing the boundary condition. Comparison of the temperatures of the melt pool by the CFD simulations and experiments at different locations gave reasonable agreement. The evolution of crust formation, melt pool temperatures, core catcher inner wall temperatures, and heat flux distribution were investigated in detail using the CFD model.