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
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
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
Feb 2025
Jul 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
March 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
February 2025
Latest News
Fabrication milestone for INL’s MARVEL microreactor
A team from Idaho National Laboratory and the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) recently visited Carolina Fabricators Inc. (CFI), in West Columbia, S.C., to launch the fabrication process for the primary coolant system of the MARVEL microreactor. Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA), which manages INL, awarded the CFI contract in January.
Hugues W. Bonin
Nuclear Technology | Volume 76 | Number 3 | March 1987 | Pages 390-399
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT87-A33924
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The optimization problem of the in-core fuel management of a thorium-fueled CANDU pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) consists of several component actions: the number of fresh fuel bundles inserted in the channels, the choice of the channels to be refueled next, the refueling rate, and the composition of the fresh fuel bundles (the latter relevant to advanced fuel cycles). Several fresh fuel compositions of 232Th and 233U were investigated and compared to the self-sufficient equilibrium thorium (SSET) cycle fuel, in terms of the objective function of an optimal fuel management problem. This optimization problem consisted of minimizing the total refueling rate at equilibrium with respect to criticality and power peaking constraints. The maximum acceptable value of the form factor was equal to 1.20, the form factor defined as the maximum-to-average power density ratio in the reactor core. The reactor core was divided into two refueling zones, each characterized by a uniform refueling rate for its channels. The control variables of the optimization problem were the average fluences (irradiations) of the bundles discharged from the channels of each of the zones, these variables being directly related to the refueling rates. A computer code, ASTERIX, was written to solve the optimization problem, using a steepest descent method, which required only a moderate number of diffusion calculations. Simulation was performed on simple models of a 600-MW CANDU PHWR. Because of the presence of 233Pa in the fuel, the diffusion calculations are nonlinear, needing a more complex solution technique. The cell parameters used were calculated by the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited code LATREP for a two energy-group model. This optimization technique gave optimal results that represent substantial savings in the refueling rates (up to 14%) when compared to nonoptimal feasible cases. The comparison of the various fuel compositions studied revealed that the sensitivity of the refueling rate (and the burnup) to the fresh fuel content is quite large for the SSET fuel and the low enrichment fuels.
