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Division Spotlight
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.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
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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Latest News
BWXT will scout potential TRISO fuel production sites in Wyoming
BWX Technologies Inc. announced today that its Advanced Technologies subsidiary has signed a cooperation agreement with the state of Wyoming to evaluate locations and requirements for siting a potential new TRISO nuclear fuel fabrication facility in the state.
David P. Weber
Nuclear Technology | Volume 45 | Number 3 | October 1979 | Pages 203-218
Technical Paper | Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32291
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The assessment of the consequences of hypothetical accidents in liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors often requires interaction between analysis and in-pile experiments, where experiments must provide geometry, boundary conditions, and thermal profiles that are prototypical of the accident scenario. Neutronic heating of test samples initially produces atypical thermal profiles, and a time period is required to elapse for thermal inversion. An analytic transient heat conduction analysis using multiregion eigenfunctions is provided to determine the space-time temperature profiles. With an assumed weak temporal dependence for eigenfunctions greater than the first, a determination of the motion of the position of maximum temperature is made, leading to a simple expression for the time to thermally invert completely, which requires knowledge of only the first eigenvalue and the expansion coefficient of the source for the fundamental mode, with similar analysis providing an estimate of the time to reach melting. A functional relationship is established between the operating reactor power, the thermal properties of the materials, and the boundary conditions to ensure satisfaction of both criteria of rapid thermal inversion and maximum temperatures above prescribed levels, such as melting. The analysis is then applied to a proposed in-pile experiment for studying pool boilup in internally heated fuel-steel pools with nuclear heated walls. It is shown that for a variety of external boundary conditions, a reactor power level may be chosen to ensure integrity of the insulating wall while simulating the pool boilup phenomena without the necessity of enrichment grading to enhance thermal inversion.