ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Nuclear Criticality Safety
NCSD provides communication among nuclear criticality safety professionals through the development of standards, the evolution of training methods and materials, the presentation of technical data and procedures, and the creation of specialty publications. In these ways, the division furthers the exchange of technical information on nuclear criticality safety with the ultimate goal of promoting the safe handling of fissionable materials outside reactors.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
April 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Discovering, Making, and Testing New Materials: SRNL’s Center For Hierarchical Waste Form Materials
Savannah River National Laboratory researchers are building on the laboratory’s legacy of using cutting-edge science to effectively immobilize nuclear waste in innovative ways. As part of the Center for Hierarchical Waste Form Materials, SRNL is leveraging its depth of experience in radiological waste management to explore new frontiers in the industry.
Antti Daavittila, Anitta Hämäläinen, Riitta Kyrki-Rajamäki
Nuclear Technology | Volume 142 | Number 2 | May 2003 | Pages 116-123
Technical Paper | OECD/NRC MSLB Benchmark | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3377
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
All of the three exercises of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/Nuclear Regulatory Commission pressurized water reactor main steam line break (PWR MSLB) benchmark were calculated at VTT, the Technical Research Centre of Finland. For the first exercise, the plant simulation with point-kinetic neutronics, the thermal-hydraulics code SMABRE was used. The second exercise was calculated with the three-dimensional reactor dynamics code TRAB-3D, and the third exercise with the combination TRAB-3D/SMABRE. VTT has over ten years' experience of coupling neutronic and thermal-hydraulic codes, but this benchmark was the first time these two codes, both developed at VTT, were coupled together. The coupled code system is fast and efficient; the total computation time of the 100-s transient in the third exercise was 16 min on a modern UNIX workstation. The results of all the exercises are similar to those of the other participants. In order to demonstrate the effect of secondary circuit modeling on the results, three different cases were calculated. In case 1 there is no phase separation in the steam lines and no flow reversal in the aspirator. In case 2 the flow reversal in the aspirator is allowed, but there is no phase separation in the steam lines. Finally, in case 3 the drift-flux model is used for the phase separation in the steam lines, but the aspirator flow reversal is not allowed. With these two modeling variations, it is possible to cover a remarkably broad range of results. The maximum power level reached after the reactor trip varies from 534 to 904 MW, the range of the time of the power maximum being close to 30 s. Compared to the total calculated transient time of 100 s, the effect of the secondary side modeling is extremely important.