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Division Spotlight
Radiation Protection & Shielding
The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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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Latest News
TerraPower begins U.K. regulatory approval process
Seattle-based TerraPower signaled its interest this week in building its Natrium small modular reactor in the United Kingdom, the company announced.
TerraPower sent a letter to the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, formally establishing its intention to enter the U.K. generic design assessment (GDA) process. This is TerraPower’s first step in deployment of its Natrium technology—a 345-MW sodium fast reactor coupled with a molten salt energy storage unit—on the international stage.
Ivars Neretnieks
Nuclear Technology | Volume 72 | Number 2 | February 1986 | Pages 194-200
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT86-A33741
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In a final repository for spent nuclear fuel, the waste canister may be surrounded by some backfill. For low-permeability backfills, the transport of dissolved species such as corrosive agents for radionuclides leached after canister penetration is faster by diffusion than by flow. In fissured rock the migrating species will have a large cross-section area for transport while in the bulk of the backfill, but a very small area for transport at the mouth of the fissure. A somewhat idealized physical model has been used as a basis for a mathematical model that has been solved analytically. It shows the influence of fissure widths, backfill thickness, and distance between fissures. Some calculations are performed using some geometrical configurations of interest. They show that the influence of fissure width on the transport rate is small.