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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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 Technology
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November 2024
Latest News
Nuclear waste: Trying again, with an approach that is flexible and vague
The Department of Energy has started over on the quest for a place to store used fuel. Its new goal, it says, is to foster a national conversation (although this might better be described as many local conversations) about a national problem that can only be solved at the local level with a “consent-based” approach. And while the department is touting the various milestones it has already reached on the way to an interim repository, the program is structured in a way that means its success will not be measurable for years.
D. B. Lancaster, K. S. Smith, A. J. Machiels
Nuclear Technology | Volume 185 | Number 1 | January 2014 | Pages 57-70
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-28
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has sponsored the development of a set of benchmarks that can be used to quantify the bias and uncertainty in computed reactivity decrements due to burnup. The bias and uncertainty covers imprecision in both the nuclide inventory and cross sections. The EPRI benchmarks are a function of enrichment, operating conditions (such as soluble boron concentration, burnable absorbers, and specific power), and storage rack conditions. The benchmarks are analyzed using SCALE 6.1 with both ENDF/B-V and ENDF/B-VII cross-section libraries. The depletion analyses are performed using the TRITON module, and the criticality calculations are performed with KENO-V.a and MCNP. The analysis shows that SCALE 6.1 with the ENDF/B-VII 238-group cross-section library supports the use of a depletion bias of only 0.0015 in Δk, where k represents the neutron multiplication factor, at peak reactivity after discharge from the core. This peak reactivity occurs after 100 h of cooling. If credit is taken for more cooling, the bias should be increased to 0.0025. The depletion uncertainty is 0.0064. Using MCNP for the criticality calculations rather than KENO-V.a produces essentially the same results if the same ENDF/B cross-section library is used. Reliance on the ENDF/B-V cross-section library produces much larger disagreement with the benchmarks. The analysis covers numerous combinations of depletion and criticality options. In all cases, the historical uncertainty of 5% of the Δk of depletion (“Kopp memo”) was shown to be conservative for fuel with >30 GWd/T burnup. However, the Kopp memo's uncertainty may be exceeded at low burnups where the absolute magnitude of the uncertainty is small.