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Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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.
David W. Esh, Barry E. Scheetz
Nuclear Technology | Volume 137 | Number 3 | March 2002 | Pages 241-251
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3271
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The chemical and mineralogical conditions of the near-field, i.e., that area in the vicinity of the waste materials, may be significantly altered from ambient conditions by thermohydrological processes resulting from the placement of heat-generating radioactive materials in a geologic repository. Models are developed linking the thermohydrological effects simulated with TOUGH2 to a nonreactive aqueous species (chloride). Perturbations in near-field chemistry from the ambient conditions may have potential impacts on engineered barrier system (EBS) performance, waste-form degradation processes, and radionuclide transport. The results of thermohydrological simulations with TOUGH2 utilizing various conceptual models for fracture representation are coupled to simple chemical models (density and osmotic effects are neglected) to demonstrate the complexity and potential magnitude of thermohydrochemical (T-H-C) processes. The concentration of chloride in solution returning to the EBS following dryout, in extreme cases, is predicted to exceed 100 000 mg/l. The dimensionality of the problem and the rate at which the tuffaceous rocks rewet significantly affect the magnitude of the thermohydrological impact on chloride redistribution. A process metric (initial rewetting rate and distribution) that is ignored when evaluating thermohydrological response is very important when a more complex coupling (T-H-C) is considered.