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Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
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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Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
A. Segev, R. E. Henry, S. G. Bankoff
Nuclear Technology | Volume 46 | Number 3 | December 1979 | Pages 482-492
Technical Paper | Nuclear Power Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32356
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Shock tube experiments with a variety of liquids have been conducted in which large pressures were obtained for systems of water-Wood’s metal, butanol-Wood’s metal, and water-molten salt. With the water-Wood’s metal system, three separate regions were observed. When the hot liquid temperature was below 210°C (which can be identified as the spontaneous nucleation temperature), no thermal interaction occurred, and the cold liquid column only bounced if vapor were present initially (region A). When the hot liquid temperature was greater than the spontaneous nucleation temperature but the contact interface temperature was less than this value (region B), the low rate of vaporization resulted in bouncing of the liquid column, which in turn produced high pressures on the order of the theoretical “water hammer” pressure. Those hydrodynamic pressures are larger than the vapor pressure corresponding to the bulk temperature of the hot liquid and larger than the maximum pressure that may be generated from single-phase pressurization. The third region, observed when the hot liquid temperature was above the spontaneous nucleation temperature upon contact (region C), resulted in fast production of vapor and impulses larger than the theoretical impulse for stopping the liquid column. The mechanism for producing the high pressures in region C is a combination of hydrodynamic impact and thermal interaction. Since pressures produced in region C are also on the order of impact pressures, the only indication for thermal interaction is a considerable increase in the resulting impulse of pressure pulses with short rise time (<1.0 ms). When the initial pressure in the system was increased (by means of a thicker diaphragm), the bouncing behavior was suppressed. This was evident from the reduced number of bounces (if any at all), the low relative pressures and impulses, the temperature history, and the shape of pressure pulses. Experiments conducted with Freons and oils (mineral and silicon), which did not result in any explosive type of interaction, also fall in a high-pressure category and are in agreement with pouring experiments. As was shown in these experiments, the hydrodynamic effects may be very significant in any shock tube analyses, especially when multiple interactions are observed. However, this was not the case in the Wright et al. experiments, in which no bouncing was observed and the pressures generated on the first impact were much higher than the theoretical impact pressure. From mixing and heat transfer considerations, it is shown that a limited amount of hot liquid can transfer its energy to the cold liquid during the intermixing stage and produce the observed pressures.