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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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International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Robert E. Einziger, Robert V. Strain
Nuclear Technology | Volume 75 | Number 1 | October 1986 | Pages 82-95
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT86-A15979
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Oxidation tests on spent-fuel fragments and rod segments were conducted between 250 and 360°C to relate temperature and defect size to fuel oxidation rate and time-to-cladding-splitting. Defect sizes from an equivalent circular diameter of 8 µm (the approximate size of a stress-corrosion-cracking-type breach) to 760 µm were used. Samples, held at temperature in a flowing air atmosphere, were frequently weighed and visually observed to determine the oxidation rate and effects of oxidation. Both the size and shape of the defect appear to influence the time-to-cladding-splitting. Above 283 °C, time-to-cladding-splitting was longer for the sharp small defect than for the large circular defect, an effect that diminished as the temperature decreased. By 250°C the sharp small defects split open before the large circular defects, indicating that, at lower temperatures, the defect’s shape and not its size may be more important when determining time-to-cladding-splitting. At both 283 and 295°C, the defects in fuel rod segments with lower burnups propagated sooner than those in rod segments with higher burnup from the same parent rod. The cumulative damage fraction approach, using a reasonable decreasing time/temperature profile, was applied to determine time-to-cladding-splitting for pressurized water reactor (PWR) fuel with a burnup >640 MWh/kg of uranium. Breached PWR fuel rods will not split open from fuel oxidation during 100 yr of storage if the rod is not exposed to air until the temperature drops below 230°C. Lower burnup fuel apparently requires lower temperature limits. The temperature limits appear to depend more on the time/temperature profile in the storage container than on oxidation rates.