ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Rajgopal Vijaykumar, Mohsen Khatib-Rahbar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 128 | Number 3 | December 1999 | Pages 313-326
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A3034
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The applicability of the empirical approach in the CONTAIN computer code for the simulation of induced flow and heat transfer in asymmetrically heated, vertical parallel-plate channels is investigated. The physical situation is related to containment cooling in the Westinghouse AP600 reactor. The countercurrent flow of air in the channel is induced by the thermal buoyancy force. In CONTAIN, the heat and mass transfer analogy (with Sherwood number calculated based on an empirical Nusselt number correlation for fully developed flows), including the film theory correction for high mass transfer, is used to calculate film evaporation. The buoyancy-induced flow is calculated through coupled solutions to lumped-parameter mass, energy, and momentum equations. The CONTAIN predictions are first compared with the Purdue results of a more detailed two-dimensional model under identical conditions in a simple parallel-plate channel. Then the CONTAIN predictions are compared with the results of the Purdue two-dimensional model and with data for two selected (forced and free convection) tests performed in the Westinghouse Large Scale Test (LST) Facility. Analyses show that the CONTAIN-calculated Sherwood numbers, the total heat fluxes, the steam mass fraction, and the bulk velocity in the channel are comparable to the two-dimensional Purdue investigations for the parallel-plate simulations and for the conditions of the Westinghouse LST Facility.
