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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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
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.
Kostadin N. Ivanov, Nadejda K. Todorova, Enrico Sartori
Nuclear Technology | Volume 142 | Number 2 | May 2003 | Pages 95-115
Technical Paper | OECD/NRC MSLB Benchmark | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3376
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Incorporating full three-dimensional (3-D) models of the reactor core into system transient codes allows for a "best-estimate" calculation of interactions between the core behavior and plant dynamics. Recent progress in computer technology has made the development of coupled thermal-hydraulic (T-H) and neutron kinetics code systems feasible. Considerable efforts have been made in various countries and organizations in this direction. Appropriate benchmarks need to be developed that will permit testing of two particular aspects. One is to verify the capability of the coupled codes to analyze complex transients with coupled core-plant interactions. The second is to test fully the neutronics/T-H coupling. One such benchmark is the Pressurized Water Reactor Main Steam Line Break (MSLB) Benchmark problem. It was sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and The Pennsylvania State University. The benchmark problem uses a 3-D neutronics core model that is based on real plant design and operational data for the Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear power plant. The purpose of this benchmark is threefold: to verify the capability of system codes for analyzing complex transients with coupled core-plant interactions; to test fully the 3-D neutronics/T-H coupling; and to evaluate discrepancies among the predictions of coupled codes in best-estimate transient simulations. The purposes of the benchmark are met through the application of three exercises: a point kinetics plant simulation (exercise 1), a coupled 3-D neutronics/core T-H evaluation of core response (exercise 2), and a best-estimate coupled core-plant transient model (exercise 3).In this paper we present the three exercises of the MSLB benchmark, and we summarize the findings of the participants with regard to the current numerical and computational issues of coupled calculations. In addition, this paper reviews in some detail the sensitivity studies on exercises 2 and 3 performed by the benchmark team using the coupled code TRAC-PF1/NEM. The purpose of these supporting studies was to aid participants in developing their models.
