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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.
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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Latest News
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
S. Schwarz, K. Fischer, A. Bentaib, J. Burkhardt, J.-J. Lee, J. Duspiva, D. Visser, J. Kyttälä, P. Royl, J. Kim, P. Kostka, R. Liang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 3 | September 2011 | Pages 594-603
Technical Paper | NURETH-13 Special / Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12508
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Within the course of a hypothetical severe accident in a nuclear power plant, hydrogen can be generated in the primary circuit and released into the containment. Considering the possibility of a deflagration, the simulation of the hydrogen distribution in the containment by computer codes is of major importance. To create a database for code validation, several distribution experiments using helium and hydrogen have been performed in the German Thermal Hydraulics, Hydrogen, Aerosols, Iodine (THAI) facility. The experiments started with the TH13 test, which was the base of the International Standard Problem exercise (ISP-47). TH13 was followed by the Hydrogen-Helium Material Scaling (HM) test series conducted within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD/NEA) THAI project. The objectives of the HM tests were (a) to confirm the transferability of existing helium distribution test data to hydrogen distribution problems and (b) to understand the processes that lead to the formation and dissolution of a light gas cloud stratification. The HM-2 test was chosen for a code benchmark.During the first phase of the HM-2 test, a light gas cloud consisting of hydrogen and nitrogen was established in the upper half of the facility. In the second phase, steam was injected at a lower position inducing a rising steam-nitrogen plume. The plume did not break through the cloud because its density was higher than the density of the cloud. Therefore, the cloud was gradually dissolved from its bottom.Eleven organizations performed blind calculations for the HM-2 experiment. The lumped parameter (LP) codes ASTEC, COCOSYS, and MELCOR and the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes FLUENT, GASFLOW, and GOTHIC were used. The main phenomena were natural convection, interaction between the rising plume and the light gas cloud, steam condensation on walls, fog behavior, and heat up of the walls. The experimental data of the first phase were published, and the atmospheric stratification was simulated reasonably well. The data from the second phase stayed concealed until the simulated results were submitted. The thermal-hydraulic phenomena were well predicted by several LP and CFD contributions, whereas the time intervals needed to dissolve the light gas cloud were either underpredicted or overpredicted. However, the other LP and CFD contributions showed larger deviations in the measured data. Reasons for deviations were identified, and model improvements were demonstrated in open posttest calculations. In this article, the experiment, the benchmark results, and the simulation features are described, and recommendations for code users are given.