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Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
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Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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2024: The Year in Nuclear—April through June
Another calendar year has passed. Before heading too far into 2025, let’s look back at what happened in 2024 in the nuclear community. In today's post, compiled from Nuclear News and Nuclear Newswire are what we feel are the top nuclear news stories from April through May 2024.
Stay tuned for the top stories from the rest of the past year.
V. Jagannathan, Usha Pal, R. Karthikeyan, S. Ganesan, R. P. Jain, S. U. Kamat
Nuclear Technology | Volume 133 | Number 1 | January 2001 | Pages 1-32
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT01-A3156
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new reactor concept has been proposed for induction of thorium in an enriched uranium reactor. The neutronic characteristics of the fissile and fertile materials have been exploited to arrive at optimal fuel assembly and core configurations. Each fuel assembly consists of an enriched uranium seed zone and a thoria blanket zone. They are in the form of ring-type fuel clusters. The fuel is contained in vertical pressure tubes placed in a hexagonal lattice array in a D2O moderator. Boiling H2O coolant is used. The 235U enrichment is ~5.4%. The thoria rods contain the 233U bred in situ by irradiation of one batch load of mere thoria clusters (without the seed zone) for one fuel cycle in the same reactor. There is no need for external feed enrichment in thoria rods. Additionally, some moveable thoria clusters are used for the purpose of xenon override. The fissile production rate from the fertile material and the consumption rate of fissile inventory is judiciously balanced by the choice of U/Th fuel rod diameter and the number and location of thoria rods in the fuel assembly and in the core. During steady-state operation at rated power level, there is no need for any conventional control maneuvers such as change in soluble boron concentration or control rod movement as a function of burnup. Burnable poison rods are also not required. A very small reactivity fluctuation of ±2 mk in 300 effective full-power days of operation is achieved and can be nearly met by coolant inlet enthalpy changes or moveable thoria clusters. Control is required only for cold shutdown of the reactor. The uranium as well as thoria rods achieve a fairly high burnup of 30 to 35 GWd/tonne at the time of discharge. Since the excess reactivity for hot-full-power operation is nearly zero at all times during the fuel cycle and since the coefficients of reactivity due to temperature and density variations of coolant are nearly zero by design, there is hardly any possibility of severe accidents involving large reactivity excursions.