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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
Andrej Prosek, Borut Mavko
Nuclear Technology | Volume 126 | Number 2 | May 1999 | Pages 170-185
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2965
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
When best-estimate calculations are performed, the uncertainties need to be quantified. Worldwide, various methods have been proposed for this quantification. Rather than proposing a new uncertainty methodology, a contribution is made to the existing code scaling, applicability, and uncertainty (CSAU) method. A small-break loss-of-coolant accident with the break in the cold leg of a Westinghouse-type two-loop pressurized water reactor was selected for the analysis, and the CSAU methodology was used for uncertainty quantification. The uncertainty was quantified for the RELAP5/MOD3.2 thermal-hydraulic computer code. Some tools suggested by the uncertainty methodology based on accuracy extrapolation (UMAE) method were successfully applied to improve the CSAU methodology, particularly for nodalization qualification. A critical scenario with core uncovery was selected for the analysis, which showed that when uncertainty is added to the peak cladding temperature, the safety margin is sufficient. The tools developed by the UMAE method showed that the structure of the CSAU method is universal because it does not prescribe tools for the analysis.