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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
Siegfried Langenbuch, Klaus-Dieter Schmidt, Kiril Velkov
Nuclear Technology | Volume 142 | Number 2 | May 2003 | Pages 124-136
Technical Paper | OECD/NRC MSLB Benchmark | doi.org/10.13182/NT03-A3378
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Pressurized Water Reactor Main Steam Line Break (MSLB) Benchmark has been calculated for all three exercises by the coupled code system ATHLET-QUABOX/CUBBOX developed by Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS). The results obtained are presented, and a detailed comparison with other solutions of the benchmark is discussed. An attempt is made to explain the differences observed in the solutions by the different modeling of physical processes in the codes. The sensitivity of results on modeling features is also investigated. In addition, the effect of different mapping schemes between fuel assemblies of the core loading and the thermal-fluid dynamics on the accuracy of three-dimensional (3-D) neutronics solutions is studied. The results for the MSLB transient are also evaluated to compare 3-D neutronics and point-kinetics solutions in view of integral and local parameters. Thus, the experiences with the coupled code system ATHLET-QUABOX/CUBBOX during the MSLB benchmark activity are summarized.
