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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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
Reboot: Nuclear needs a success . . . anywhere
The media have gleefully resurrected the language of a past nuclear renaissance. Beyond the hype and PR, many people in the nuclear community are taking a more measured view of conditions that could lead to new construction: data center demand, the proliferation of new reactor designs and start-ups, and the sudden ascendance of nuclear energy as the power source everyone wants—or wants to talk about.
Once built, large nuclear reactors can provide clean power for at least 80 years—outlasting 10 to 20 presidential administrations. Smaller reactors can provide heat and power outputs tailored to an end user’s needs. With all the new attention, are we any closer to getting past persistent supply chain and workforce issues and building these new plants? And what will the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president mean for nuclear?
As usual, there are more questions than answers, and most come down to money. Several developers are engaging with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or have already applied for a license, certification, or permit. But designs without paying customers won’t get built. So where are the customers, and what will it take for them to commit?
Ronald F. Kulak
Nuclear Technology | Volume 51 | Number 3 | December 1980 | Pages 378-387
Technical Paper | Mechanics Applications to Fast Breeder Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32574
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Evaluation of the structural safety of reactors often involves the analysis of various types of fluid-structural components interacting in three-dimensional space. For example, in the design of a pool-type reactor several vital in-tank components such as the primary pumps and the intermediate heat exchangers are contained within the primary tank. Typically, these components are suspended from the deck structure and largely submersed in the sodium pool. Because of this positioning these components are vulnerable to structural damage due to pressure wave propagation in the tank during a hypothetical core disruptive accident. To assess the transient response of these components, it is necessary to perform a dynamic analysis in three-dimensional space that accounts for the fluid-structure coupling. A formulation for a three-dimensional Lagrangian hydrodynamic element was applied to the above safety problem. A model that has many of the salient features of this fluid-structural component system was developed and then analyzed using the NEPTUNE computer code. The primary tank and the in-tank component were modeled as deformable elastoplastic structures, the sodium pool as an inviscid, compressible fluid, while the deck was taken to be rigid and fixed in space. The transient response of the model showed that although the pressure waves loaded the in-tank component so that it moved toward the primary tank, they also loaded the primary tank and moved it away from the component preventing structural damage due to impact between the component and tank.